Chasing Phantoms

Part I: Mad World

Chapter 12: One More to Pile on the Desk

1.

"Hello, you have reached Sam, please leave a message after the beep."

With a delicate, pale finger, Sam pushed the play button on her old answering machine. It beeped once, long and ringing.

"Hey, Sammy-kins, it's mom. I was wondering when you were coming up to Manhattan to visit Dad and I; The Steinbergs are having their annual gala at the Museum of Modern Art, and I am hoping on your presence there. I've picked out a gorgeous dress for you – it's black this time, I really think it would look beautiful on you." The voice faltered a little bit, "S-Sam? I, ah…please come and see us, your father—"

There was an abrupt beep, followed by an automated voice.

"Message deleted. Next message: Five thirty p.m."

"Sam, It's Nana. I hope you've settled in alright down there with the fat cats. Hope you aren't up to anything naughty down there in Maryland…you know I can't look over you bony little shoulder forever. I wouldn't want to see you face in the D.C. society papers. God save us…that would give your poor Nana a conniption. Also, honey, please take some time to talk to your parents. You have no idea how grateful they are for what you are doing. I don't know what your mother would have done otherwise. I love you, Sammy. Please call if you start getting those nightmares again, or if you miss your old Nana."

Another beep.

"End of final message."

She stared at her reflection in the ornate mirror above the table in foyer; there were bluish stains under her eyes that stubbornly refused to be covered by makeup. Sam left her work portfolio on the floor under the half-moon table and her coat on the coat tree next to it before walking into her recently-renovated kitchen. Her pale hand glided over the black granite she had installed herself before reaching out to open the fridge door to pull out leftover tofu noodles.

Still in her work clothes – a pair of high-waist black wool trousers and a thick cardigan that she favored in the winter – she grabbed a fork out of a counter drawer and proceeded to make it to her living room, turn on the switch to her gas fireplace, and collapse on a Victorian chaise in front of it.

The clock on the mantle read 7:00 p.m., but sleep and exhaustion pulled at Sam despite her vain attempts at resistance. Tofu didn't last forever and she was out of coffee. She put her empty plate on a side table, and sat on the edge of the chaise with her head in her hands, gently rubbing her temples. A headache threatened to strike.

Since moving to Maryland, her life had fallen into a working routine that was comfortable, but held a certain kind of loneliness that came from the lack of something that had always been there before. New York held a tense electricity, where everyone felt the need to hurry and be busy, and in that feeling, there was the knowledge that one was never quite alone. It was quite different where Sam was at the moment. There was a quiet, dead sort of calm, a drab sense of sameness, with an undercurrent of neglect. It was just this particular part of the county, really. She had seen D.C. and all of the glimmering lights of Georgetown where she had found a quiet, but eclectic and cultural home, and DuPont Circle, as well as the more major downtown centers of Rockville and Bethesda that held a sort of sophisticated independence.

But that wasn't what she needed right now. She stood up to turn off the gas fireplace and went to her kitchen to brew some green tea. It wasn't what she needed either, but it would have to do. There was a gaping silence around her; a silence that no amounts of tea, nor work could fill. But she had to try, otherwise she would go mad. The silence would overwhelm her.

2.

The coffee in her black spider mug was deathly cold as she gently ran her pale fingers over the maze of cracks and gaps in the ceramic. It had been her favorite mug, and she had spent weeks repairing it after shattering it on the floor to try and distract herself from the pain of the news that had distracted her in the first place. The evidence of painstaking and untrained efforts at super-gluing the shattered shards together was marbled across the surface, her inexpertise but determination written clearly in every line of the ceramic. At the memory, she winced and involuntarily inspected her hands. Just a few months ago, in middle of July, there would have been raw scald marks on her hands at feet from the burning coffee; peeling, bright red blisters and scarred skin. All that remained were the lighter patches of impossibly soft, pinkish skin that had grown only a few months ago; ungrooved and unworn. Her hands were scarred irreparably.

A few months ago, she thought bitterly, she would have been staring at the scene of New York before her, unmoving and shocked beyond repair, watching the sun rise and fall again day after day, sleep escaping her until her body and mind rebelled and consumed her after four days. A few months ago she would have been standing in a black sheath dress, an umbrella in hand, at the foot of the freshly-dug grave of her old friend, watching the glossy black casket sink his body into the earth forever. The friend who had been the first person who had befriended her in high school; as she remembered over and over again the incomprehensible pain of losing someone so close; the pain of knowing that everything he had ever thought, everything he had hoped, had vanished.

A soft rap on her door brought her silent musings to a sudden halt. It was a chilly early November morning, and she had been counting on the day to be free of the nightmares of others so that she could immerse herself in the growing stacks of papers on her desk. They rose around her, consuming her mercilessly until not an inch of the old metal work desk was visible – the finest standard issue government paid furnishings offered. The soft tapping on the door to her office came again, but more insistent this time around. Sighing, she put her papers in a neat stack on her desk, off to the side. If someone had requested her presence, then she couldn't have a foot-high pile of papers obscuring her view of the chair before her.

"Come in," she voiced, trying desperately to keep the annoyance out of her speech, but she knew once the words were out of her mouth that a trained ear could hear the bitter undercurrent.

"Already snipping at me, Dr. Manson? And we haven't even had the chance to say hello again…" a smooth, silky voice greeted her back, and as Sam looked up she saw the familiar face that greeted her.. Her heart wrenched at the sight; she had seen that face in March, and it looked even more haunted than before.

"Please sit, Special Agent…?"

"Possible. And I would like to start off with a proposal for you," Kim said tersely, her arms crossed in front of her.

Sam raised her eyebrow, trying to place an expression of bored indifference on her face, but her face belied a frown.

"And, what would this proposal entail, exactly, Special Agent Possible?"

"I trust you have seen the news lately, correct? And, that you attended the funeral of a Jonathan Winters last June?"

Sam bristled a little, wondering what the Possible woman and her high and mighty FBI had to do with her friend's murder. He had been killed and buried in New York City, not in Washington D.C.

"Jonathan Winters was murdered by a serial killer that we have been chasing since October of 2009 – last year."

"So it's your fault then? That he's dead."

Out of all the things she had expected to come out of this girl's mouth, what she had just heard was not one of them. But in her heart, Kim felt the weight of her words. They were exactly what she had been thinking over and over again since June, hell, since December 3rd nearly two years ago. If she couldn't save her team leader, how could she have saved all those people, now dead at the hands of a maniac? She tried her best to find a way to deny Dr. Manson, but she knew she could pretend herself for much longer.

"Yes."

The young doctor relaxed slightly in her chair, cold and impassive as always, but her eyes were softer than before.

"What is your offer, Agent Possible?"

"I want you to help me find that bastard and lock him up forever," said Kim. The fire in her voice burned, slow and deadly; smoldering embers that were very much alive and hot and volatile.

Sam leaned forward and steepled her fingers, elbows resting on the rusting metal desk, which was riddled with patches of peeling, sickly ochre, metallic paint.

"If we catch him with your help," Kim started softly, her eyes serious and calculating, "I want you to join my team at the FBI."

The older woman stood up silently and gracefully, and walked to the door of the tiny office. Sam cleared her throat softly when she had reached the door, and with her hand resting on the handle, Kim turned to face the woman again.

"Why should I?" the young doctor barely whispered.

"Because of all of them," replied Kim, pointing a long finger at the filing cabinets behind Sam, "How much longer are you just going live inside a box, Dr. Manson? You have a choice, but right now you're just waiting outside the lines. It's time for you choose what kind of world you want to live in."

Sam met the passion in Kim's eyes with her own, the mask of a warrior across her features; she gave the older woman a curt nod and whispered softly, "Okay."

"I'll call tomorrow, and we'll figure out the paperwork tomorrow. Damn bureaucracy; they can't get anything set up efficiently through all the red tape," Kim said with a small smile as she opened the door. As she walked through the door, she caught the ghost of a smile on Sam's face.

3.

Valerie twirled back and forth in Tucker's desk chair, her hands steepled together and pressed to her mouth, which was drawn into a small frown. Her gaze was empty and unfocused as she stared intently at a spot on the blue carpet between Kim's and Tucker's desks where Danny had spilled coffee sometime in the past year. There were quite a few of those kinds of stains in the floor, but the one she was staring at, she barely saw.

"Is Kim still down with Dr. Simone?"

Danny's voice startled her out of her trance and she looked up quickly to find Danny standing in front of the whiteboard to the left of where Valerie was sitting.

"You sure know how to spook a lady, Daniel," the corners of her mouth pulled up slightly, "And, yes, Kim is still with Monique, though I don't think that they have a lot to talk about, seeing as it has been over three months since we buried Winters."

"How can we be sure that Jonathan Winters was another of our victims! I just don't think it fits – the M.O. has changed, Valerie. We weren't called in – N.Y.P.D. wrote it off as a routine stabbing," Danny paused for a moment when Tucker entered, "Nice of you to finally show up – what have you been doing, Tuck?"

"I just came back from talking to the guys in cybercrimes and Kim," he said, slightly out of breath, fiddling with the PDA in his chest pocket, "Apparently, we're getting a new team member."

"How come we're just hearing this from you now?" Valerie said warily, with a hint of accusation in her voice.

"It's all just gossip so far, but the word is that we're getting a consultant for our team, not a full field agent."

Valerie sat quietly and motionlessly in Tucker's chair. She was torn between her trust for Ira and Kim and her own apprehension. The team had barely been together a year, and already a new element was being added. Tucker and Danny were already having a hard enough time adjusting to the FBI. What were Ira and Kim thinking? Valerie had to wonder. Kim's team had a high-stress job and a lot of responsibility. They probably did need the extra person, but would that person be right for the team? Would they have enough experience? Would they have almost none at all? Kim and Danny were naturals when it came to field work, but Tucker was the technical brains of the operation. Valerie wasn't really part of the team, but if that were the case, then Wade Load, the forensic scientist, and Dr. Simone, the coroner, couldn't be considered part of the team either. She hoped that Kim and Ira knew what they were doing.

"Kim will tell us when she knows for sure, I mean, really…she wouldn't keep that kind of information from us," Danny added from his own desk chair, across the whiteboard from where Valerie was sitting. Tucker was, of course, sitting on Danny's desk and flipping through the latest copy of Maxim. Danny looked calm and relaxed, occasionally stealing glances at Tucker's magazine and sharing an approving nod.

Valerie rolled her eyes at them, envious of how they could just simply forget about everything that was wrong with the world.

4.

Stupid chickens, Sam thought, stupid, stupid, chickens. Why were they in her refrigerator eating her tofu? What had she ever done to them! She was an ultra-recyclo vegetarian for God's sake! She hadn't eaten any chicken things in over twenty years and this is how they repaid her! Their pecking was possibly worse than the destruction of her kitchen. Tap, tap, tap. Tap, tap, tap. There was no end in sight to the madness.

She rolled over in her bed, flailing slightly as she loudly and exasperatedly yelled, "Shut up you stupid chickens and get out of my tofu!"

Her roll took her a bit too far and she promptly fell off of her bed with an undignified thump and shivered at the sudden cold.

"Oh, dream…right," she mumbled to herself. The tapping noise hadn't stopped though, and Sam stood up and shook her head groggily.

Tap, tap, tap.

There was someone at her door, tapping violently.

"If it's anyone other than the police or the President of the United States of America, they will not live to see…" Sam took a quick glance at her watch, "…three thirty in the afternoon. God, I love Sundays," she finished with a shake of her head as she stumbled down the stairs towards her front door in a gray Columbia tee shirt and black pajama pant, her hair so matted and untamed that her puff levels would have allowed an eagle to nest in her hair without much discomfort to Sam.

It was cold in her house; she didn't like to turn the heat up too high in the winter because of the energy costs. That was why people wore sweaters in the winter anyways. But now, as she reached her front door, tapping still incessantly boring into her brain, she was cold and irritated at the impatience of the person on the other side. She swung open the door angrily, not bothering to look through the eye-hole, a look of anger plastered all over her features. She looked like a madwoman and had hoped that it would serve an advantage in scaring off whoever was on the other side of her door.

She failed, of course.

"Good afternoon, Dr. Manson. I trust you remembered the time of our meeting?" said Kim, looking a bit amused and perturbed, "But, seeing as you look like you just rolled out of a pile of hay, I guess not… I'd like to not stand in the cold for much longer."

Of course, she let herself in, leaving Sam standing at the door, the cold winter air blasting at her bare skin. Kim waited for Sam to finish blinking stupidly at the street, but after about fifteen seconds her patience ran out and she said loudly, "Dr. Manson, neither of us have all day, and it's getting sufficiently cold in your house."

Sam blinked again blearily and turned to face Kim, at which point she seemed to snap out of a dream she had not quite escaped on waking up. The chickens had stopped tapping, and there was a ginger in her foyer.

"I don't exactly remember becoming a chicken, even less eating your tofu," the red head said with an amused smile on her face.

"Oh, god I'm sorry, Agent Possible…you woke me up in the middle of REM sleep, which means I was still dreaming," Sam said with a blush.

"About chickens eating your tofu?" the elder woman replied with a raised eyebrow.

"Well, yes, you see, all that tapping you were doing permeated my subconscious, and my brain turned the sensory information into something that my dreaming brain could understand, and…" Sam stopped abruptly and furrowed her brow, "Well, that's not actually too important. Here, follow me to the library; we can discuss things more comfortably there."

Kim didn't protest and followed Sam easily into what was supposed to be a den in her expensive Georgetown townhome, but was instead a room that had, instead of walls, floor to ceiling bookshelves. Custom made bookshelves for that matter, which were filled with books, except for two columns that stood empty.

"You can sit anywhere you like, except for on that bench over there," Sam said, gesturing to an old, Victorian-looking black bench with ornate silver carving on the legs, "It's an antique that I'm refurbishing, and one of the legs isn't quite sturdy."

Kim nodded and sat down on a slightly simpler black armchair that was closest to the door, but it wasn't much less fancy than the bench, and Kim felt awkward sitting on the striped black damask.

"I think changing and brushing my hair is in order; I'm sorry to have greeted you this way, it is entirely my fault."

Sam waited for the nod of approval from Kim, and fled the room as quickly as she could, to her own which was up the stairs. Running her hand through her hair in desperation, she tried to compose herself and rushed to find her long-sleeved cashmere dress. That seemed acceptable business wear, after all. She reminded herself to relax and breathe, and to be polite. That wouldn't hurt when trying to get a job that didn't completely suck.

Meanwhile, Kim felt as uncomfortable as she had felt before. Sam's house was old and ornate, but small and was clearly Sam's home. She had clearly completely redone bits of the house to suit her, and had spent quite a sum doing it. The shelves were a dark mahogany color all around, and black velvet drapes framed the only window in the room. A typical door to the library had been forgone for an open doorway that spanned from floor to ceiling, exactly opposite the open kitchen.

The red haired agent stood up from the chair and circled the small room instead. Upon second glance, she noticed that every book on her shelves was at least second hand, some could be considered antiques. There was the faint smell of wood stain coming from the shelves.

"I made the shelves myself with recycled pieces of wood I found. A lot of carpentry shops throw away usable scraps of wood, so I asked to take some, put the pieces together and stained the wood myself."

Kim spun round at Sam's entrance. The girl's hair was sleek and raven-black in the dying sunlight. Her skin was an eerie cream against the contrast of her hair and her equally dark clothing, but her face was soft and devoid of makeup, just as it had been the first time Kim had spoken to her that day that Danny had very nearly died in New York. It was the same Sam that had slept on the hospital floor waiting for Danny to wake, and it was a Sam with whom Kim felt that she could get along.

"And the books?" Kim asked Sam quietly.

"I've been collecting them for years; I buy used books at libraries and garage sales."

"That's impressive, not to mention resourceful. Ira told me you would be a good choice the moment I suggested you for our team."

Sam looked less than happy at that statement, and replied, "Ira? Have you FBI people been snooping through my records without permission?"

The older woman looked amused at the way Sam looked, with eyes narrowed and sharp like a hawk's.

"Ira Chronus, although most everyone calls him Director Chronus. He has this…creepy…way of talking. He…" Kim paused at this, trying to find the words to explain to Sam exactly what it was about Ira that kept everyone on edge, "Well, it almost seems as if Ira has all of time in front of him, like the world is an elaborate, ongoing cascade of Dominoes. You'll get used to it – there's no one alive that I trust more than him."

"I don't know if I'll ever get used to working for the government so directly, but it would be stupid to stop myself from doing the world a big favor just because I felt uncomfortable doing it," Sam smiled to herself.

"Well, get dressed then, we have to go to work," Kim declared.

Sam's head snapped up and her body tensed.

"Work? Today? What about my interview and the screening process?" she asked with a slightly panicked expression on her face.

"That was the interview, now get dressed and get ready to meet everyone," Kim smiled, more amused than ever at the expression on Sam's face. At the mention of meeting everyone, she looked like she was about to faint.

"You are a cruel woman Kim Possible."

"I'm not," she replied with smirk, "I am not, because today's Sunday. No one but my team works today. We have an open case, so I asked my team to come in today. Everyone else there is married to their job anyways."

Sam still looked a little green in the face. Meeting people on such a short notice wasn't one of her strong points. Kim smiled and looked exasperated.

"Sam, there's a reason that I thought you would be good for this job. Just trust me."

A look flickered over Sam's features.

"Did it ever cross your mind that you ask too much, Possible?" Sam asked while self-consciously patting the smooth black fabric of her dress. She crossed her arms protectively, and looked back up at the red-headed woman in her library.

"No. I am a good judge of character, and I believe that you can handle this rather easily, though it may be uncomfortable at first."

Sam snorted softly, "Right…uncomfortable…kind of like being burned alive is 'uncomfortable'…" she trailed off, but picked up her thick cardigan from one of the chairs and pulled it over her shoulders and left the library, motioning to Kim that she was ready to leave, "But, it's now or never, really…"

A smile flickered over Kim's face as Sam left the room, her chin in the air.

5.

7:30 a.m. An alarm clock blared angrily on a small bedside table. Its morning cry was quickly and efficiently silenced with a strong hand on the off button, extinguished like the life of a man staring down the barrel of a gun. The man sat hunched atop his covers, staring out the dark window of his bedroom. The moon had long ago stopped glittering in the sky, and he could see the light of dawn approaching. He had not moved all night – the clock had interrupted his thoughts, but not his sleep, for he had not slept. He sat cross-legged on his gray comforter in a pair of green flannel pajama pants and idly traced the scar on his shoulder, the one on his chest, a couple of bruises he had newly acquired.

He had slipped on the stairs going up to his apartment building because of the sheet of ice that had covered the bottom two stairs, and being still occasionally clumsy, he had fallen face-first into the concrete stairs. His ribs had taken the brunt of the beating. The rest – the other scars – had long ago been healed; it was about nine months ago that the majority of the scars he had on his body had shown up.

He gently turned his badge over in his hands. It felt like the first time he had gotten in; fresh, shiny and rewarding in his hands – a tangible token of all the hard training he had had to go through at the FBI Academy. The badge was not quite as new nor quite as shiny as the day he had gotten it, but it was just as wonderful to him. Perhaps, it was even more wonderful having back since he had been reinstated as an agent yesterday – even getting Special Agent status. No more desk work for him – today he was a real agent, out in the field kicking butt and taking names. But he wasn't – he just didn't feel like himself anymore. He used to think of his mother and father all the time, he used to see their faces and feel that fire burning in him that made the long nights and death and pain worth it; he used to see their faces and charge on, forgetting all the bad in the world for a moment. Since his coma, though, their faces were slipping away, and it disturbed him.

What he did have were nightmares. After waking up from his coma, they had come every night to the point where he would not sleep for fear of what he would see. Each one began the same: he would be called into the office early in the morning to see that there was another victim on the desk. The team would search tirelessly, and Danny would be sent to check out a promising lead by himself. He would go to the suspect's apartment for questioning, but notice something suspicious – either a noise or blood or something else – and Danny would break the door and enter.

He would find the man they had been looking for all along; the shadowy face would have a woman at knifepoint, and he would murder her in front of Danny. Danny would run as fast as he could and attack the shadowy man, but would get stabbed himself, knifed through the heart; and as the man ran away, he would hold the woman as they both bled to death together. It was always too late to save them both, and those accusing, betrayed purple eyes clearly said that she blamed him; that it was his fault. The fault was his and his alone.

Tonight he hadn't slept. Yesterday he hadn't slept. He made sure Kim never noticed how close to falling apart he really was, because she would send him home and sign him up for counseling. The counselor would try and convince him that his parents really were dead and that he had to move on. He always had to move on, but he didn't want to; he had to keep fighting because his parents were alive – he could feel it, and that feeling hadn't gone away all those years they had been missing.

The standard issue gray cell-phone behind him rang.

"Kim."

There were no formalities of pleasantries. He knew what calls on weekends meant.

"Be at work by four today, don't be late."

He opened his mouth and closed it again, his brow furrowed in confusion.

"I have a good feeling about this Daniel, so don't screw it up because you can't read the numbers on your watch, or you couldn't find your car keys, or whatever the last stupid excuse you used was."

Ouch.

"You better be all clean and washed and, most importantly, presentable when I see your moronic face at four, otherwise I will call your sister and have her babysit you for two weeks, do I make myself clear?"

Double ouch.

"You wound me, Kimmy."

She hung up abruptly and left Danny to run his hands through his hair. It was overly fluffed, a bit too long, and sticking up in every possible direction it could manage, and so he stood up from his bed and stretched his stiff back. He padded quietly to the shower across the hall, his bare feet making no noise on the cold, dark hardwood floor. The water in the shower ran cold for about a minute before Danny stepped in and washed the sleeplessness and strain from his body.

He finished his shower, dried himself and pulled on a clean pair of boxers. Great, he thought, the only clean pair I have happen to be purple with little green ghosts on it. They weren't exactly his luckiest pair. The last time he had worn them, the belt on his trousers had broken and his pants had fallen down in the middle of chasing a suspect back in Baltimore.

He took care to comb his hair so that it didn't sick up too much in the front. Kim obviously wanted him to look presentable, but he wasn't really sure why. The most likely option was that the new team member would be introduced later today, when most of the FBI building would be deserted, save for the people actively working on cases.

His shirt was freshly cleaned and his black trousers pressed and he placed both garments carefully on the armchair of his couch. Danny spread out on the couch and turned the small television in the corner of the room on to the local news, which he then promptly muted and then fell asleep.

6.

"I can't believe she made us come in on a Sunday," Tucker whined petulantly from his desk chair in the bullpen. He pulled at the collar of an overly-crisp and overly-white oxford. A green tie was knotted at his throat, and the knot was slightly crooked.

Daniel looked up at him from the Sunday edition of the Chicago Tribune. His glasses were slightly crooked from where Tucker had accidentally sat on them about a month ago, but other than that, Danny looked immaculate. There was a line between his brows, but it vanished as he looked up to see Tucker banging his head against his mouse pad in sheer exasperation.

Danny just rolled his eyes and went back to his newspaper, his smile growing smaller as he read on.

"'GHOSTS CONTINUE TO HIDE IN THE SHADOWS OF AMITY PARK'"

Danny spun his chair around so quickly that the wheels slipped on the plastic mat and sent him sprawling on the seat of his carefully pressed trousers, the wheels on his chair still spinning.

"Sounds like a cheery read; don't even know why you bother with the Tribune," Valerie intoned from her post on the wall of the bullpen behind Danny's desk. She had a Cheshire cat grin on her face as she rested her elbows on the partition. The cheeky smile only widened at Danny's incredulous expression and his spluttering attempts to be angry with her; he was too disoriented to come up with anything.

"Leave the poor kid alone, Agent Grey…god knows you make his life miserable," Wade Load said with a smile as he offered a large hand out to help Danny up.

"Thanks Wade. What are you doing up here? I thought sunlight burned your skin?" Danny replied with his own smirk.

"Yeah, what are you doing up here, Load?" Tucker added from his desk. He had stood up, and his arms were crossed.

"The coffee up here is better, plus I wanted to tell you that your new consultant is a hottie, though I think she would have made sure I would never procreate if I had told her so. Anyone want to come get coffee with me?"

Danny smiled and nodded quickly in reply, "That would be great."

Tucker stirred and said, "I think it's about time for a cup of coffee for me too, mind if I tag along, Load?"

Wade shook his head and chuckled, "Yeah, sure," before giving Valerie a wink and leaving the pen with Tucker and Danny at his side.

"Wow," interjected a voice behind Valerie as soon as the boys had left the room.

"You said it, love," Valerie replied with a sigh, "How old is Wade Load again?"

Monique chuckled softly as she sat down on top of the empty desk across from Danny's. She crossed her arms and looked up at Valerie again, "He's twenty nine, about the same age as Kim's brothers."

"How many people know?" Valerie asked, her eyebrow arched.

Monique shook her head and said, "Only you and Kim, though I'm sure the Director knows too," Monique paused and chuckled, "God, if Tucker knew how Wade messes with him…I mean, did you see that whole testosterone show there?"

Valerie let out a long laugh, "God, who would have known that Tucker would become one of my best friends? It is funny how Tucker refuses to acknowledge that Wade is older than him; he still likes to refer to him as an eighteen year old in my presence."

Monique snorted ungracefully before answering, "Well, there's a lot of things we didn't see coming."

"Yeah, that's an understatement, honey," Valerie replied in a flat monotone before moving from her spot behind the bullpen to sit next to Monique on the empty desk in the bullpen.

"I met her, you know – the new consultant," Monique said, biting her lip and shifting her weight a little on the desk.

"Well? What did you think? Good lord woman! Why so worried?" Valerie asked.

"Dr. Manson is, well, interesting…to put it lightly," Monique replied with a tilt of her head, "She is very, very, very, scarily good at what she does."

A look of realization crossed Valerie's face, and she let out a long laugh despite how clearly uncomfortable Monique was.

"She…" Valerie gasped a little for breath, "She…called you out, didn't she! Oh my lord – and Wade was there too! That's how she knew!" Valerie dissolved into more laughter, but Monique only managed to look more and more horrified.

"My God, Valerie, stop picking on her; you know her constitution is fragile," Wade walked back in the pen with a smirk, followed by Danny and Tucker, who both had their brows furrowed and were whispering quietly to each other. Valerie ceased laughing, but still had a wide, knowing smile plastered on her face.

The two younger agents had their heads bowed as they both made their way to Danny's desk. Danny fell back into his chair, never breaking conversation with Tucker, who had placed himself on the corner of Danny's desk.

Wade sidled up to Monique and, in a lowered voice, said, "They've been like that ever since I mentioned Dr. Manson."

Parts of Danny and Tucker's conversation floated across the pen, "Manson…can't be one of those Mansons…Well, I heard she is really good at her job….Kim wouldn't have picked her otherwise…But she won't be of any use in the field, right? …No, she's just a consultant…" their conversation no more than hushed whispers above the silence of the relatively empty department.

"Tucker just wants to gossip," Wade said quietly, addressing Valerie and Monique, "But Danny seems…Well, there's something bothering him."

Valerie glanced up to Danny quickly, her eyes carefully analyzing, calculating. Her frown only deepened, and concern flickered over her features.

"Oh, my god," she whispered, as realization flickered over her face.

Monique and Wade both turned their heads toward her, questions written all over their faces, but Valerie's gaze was closed off, and without warning, she stood up and left the pen, like a cold storm.

7.

"I need a minute or two, Possible." Sam sat on the cold stairs in Kim's unofficial conference room, her head in her hands.

"Take a few minutes. He doesn't remember you, Manson," Kim replied. Sam lifted her head and stared at Kim, who was leading against the wall opposite Sam, her arms crossed.

"What the hell happened after he left?" She asked accusingly.

Kim sighed and shifted her weight to her left leg, and uncrossed her arms. "He re-broke his ribs when the plane landed, which ended up doing some damage. He had been sedated, but the drugs were wearing off by the time we landed; he bolted upright, being the dumb ass he is, and undid all the work the doctors at Columbia did."

"That's not the whole story," Sam replied, her eyebrow raised. There was no question in her statement.

Kim sighed and shook her head, "No, it isn't the whole story. After he broke his ribs again, he seemed to be recovering just fine, but something must have triggered him; he lapsed into a coma and didn't wake up until it was the very end of April."

"A coma?" Sam hissed, "You do realize that whatever caused him to lapse into a coma is probably still tormenting him now, right?"

Kim sent a venomous glare in Sam's direction, "Yes, Manson, I see it every day. He doesn't sleep very much, and he tries his best to hide it from me. Tucker isn't worried at all – he isn't too perceptive. He trusts every word that comes out of Danny's mouth." Kim shook her head and ran her fingers through her hair. "He's not okay. He isn't okay at all, but he works harder than I do some days."

"You know why, don't you?" Sam said softly.

Kim lowered her head and gave a soft chuckle, "Yes, I do," and then looked back up into Sam's eyes.

Sam stood up and brushed off her black sheath dress and pulled her opaque black stockings up a little from where they had bunched up near her ankles. She gave Kim a smirk and said, "So, It's for me to find out, right?" before opening the door to the back stairwell and stepping out into the deserted hallway of the FBI building.

Kim followed her out, but was stopped in her tracks by Valerie, who was rounding the corner from the homicide department. "I'm going to have a word with you later, Possible," Valerie said angrily, before sweeping off into the stairwell, her lime green heels clacking loudly as she raced down the stairs.

To be continued...

A/N: Please be kind and review.

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