CHAPTER 57
THAT'S HOW MANY TIMES YOU JUST DIED
"Dibs on that window seat!" JJ yelled out, the moment she stepped on the plane.
"Oh, come on!" Tara protested.
There were five window seats on the plane, yet the girls always found themselves arguing over one of them.
"Don't make me pull the Temporary Unit Chief card!" JJ threatened as she walked over to the desired seat.
"Temporary Unit Chief's Assistant." Emily smirked, correcting JJ while slyly taking the seat, right from underneath her nose.
"Oh, you will pay for this, Prentiss!" JJ hissed. "You will pay!"
"Mhm." Emily croaked with a smile before opening her laptop and going over the case details one more time.
For the rest of the plane ride, everyone kept quiet, unless they had something to share, connected to the case. Normally, the plane was safe ground for them, a place where they would act silly and take videos of each other, singing, dancing, sleeping in weird positions. Not to mention the prank wars that took place on board.
However, with all that was on stakes for them, as a team, and for the poor girl who had been kidnapped after three other girls her age had already been found dead in the area, they just did not have it in them to waste any time by being silly.
"Good morning, Trainees. And you better believe it's the last good one you'll have!" A deep, masculine voice resonated in the air around the Trainees, as they stepped onto the SWAT training field.
"Great, another bully!" Bryan rolled his eyes.
They had literally just been promised no more teacher negativity and hostile environment.
Angie had frozen in place, as soon as she had heard the voice that came from behind her. She barely registered Bryan's words to her.
"I am your new training Agent and you can call me DeMo, for now. And you punks better believe I'll bust your asses in training!" He said sternly.
Angie turned around very slowly.
"Wow!" She exclaimed, as soon as her eyes laid on the person who had been speaking.
The man locked his eyes with hers for just a second. He looked so intimidating, his stare could melt anyone. But not her.
Angie smiled, unable to control her reaction.
"Dude, this is going to be awesome!" She almost squealed, now tugging on the side of Bryan's pants from all the excitement she felt.
"Scratch anything you think you may know about SWAT now. From this point on, what I say, goes. What I command, you do. What I do, you analyze and study, and then repeat. Clear?" DeMo said loud and clear.
"I did not hear you, Trainees. Am I clear?" He yelled louder and everyone felt obliged to reply to him, as if this was the Marine Corps.
"Good. Now I need five teams of ten people." He said, calculating a rough estimate of about fifty Trainees in front of him.
He then gave each team different instructions for their first training. After that, he let each team enter the training field, with the aim of not getting spotted.
Each Trainee was asked to wear an all-white apron, on top of their Academy uniform.
He entered with them, checking the way they moved and how well they knew the protocol when breaching a complex field with multiple doors.
For the purpose of the training, he used colorful paintball-based guns. Each time a member of the team screwed up, he shot them.
At the end of the training he asked everyone to stand in line and to look around.
"You?" He pointed at a random girl. "How many paint shots do you have?"
"Uh, six, I think." She replied.
"Seven!" DeMo pointed out. "That's how many times you just died during this mission."
Everyone gasped and started counting their own shots.
"Each shot could have been that one, fatal shot. Now, I want you to sit on your butts for the next fifteen minutes and to talk to each other. Try to figure out what you did wrong and why you deserved those shots. And may I point out, not all the shots came from me. Some of you put yourselves in the line of friendly fire, and got shot by your teammates. This is just…absurd!" The guy waved his hands in the air, illustrating the severity of the situation.
They all took that quarter of an hour to do as instructed. After that, they were asked to put a fresh white apron on and re-enter the training field, still in the same groups.
When the second wave of training missions finished, the trainer rounded them up once more.
"Counted your shots this time?" He asked and people nodded. "Noticed anything different?"
"I got three shots less." A guy commented.
"I got four less than last time." A girl added.
"Congratulations. This is three or four times less chances for you to die. And do you want to know why?" DeMo challenged them.
"Because speaking to your team before a case is not only mandatory, but also crucial, for the wellbeing of all team members. A good team strategy and a strong bond between the teammates decreases the chances of anyone getting hurt. Also, on psychological level, entering the field, knowing that you have people who are surely watching your back, helps tremendously during a mission." Angie stated, missing out the memo that he had asked a rhetorical question.
"Uh, Sir." She added, trying to make up for overstepping and taking over his mellow, enlightening speech.
"Exactly." The man said, pointing at her. "Who on Earth are you, now?"
"Trainee Angela Hunter, Sir DeMo!" She said with a smile.
"Trainee Angela Hunter, I like you." The man smirked. "Don't get bigheaded now."
She giggled. It felt so good to hear someone be so openly nice to her in class.
"Being bigheaded will kill you, out on the field, Sir. So no, I most definitely do not have any intention of being that." She said, fully confident in her words.
"That is all for today. I went easy on ya'll. You better believe next time you see me, you'll be bawling your eyes out and sweating like a…" He stopped himself from speaking before he'd say some reference that would sound a bit too informal, according to the Academy standards.
"Get out of here now." He dismissed them all and spotted Dan walking over towards him.
"So?" Dan asked once they were the only two people left around.
"So, I am loving this." He smirked. "Bossing kids around…are you kidding me? This is awesome! I never knew I've missed teaching at the Academy. It's been years now. This is awesome!"
"Come on, man. I know you'd rather be out there on the field, battling monsters with your own team." Dan pushed it.
"Well, I'm not going to deny that." He shrugged.
"And…?" Dan asked further.
"And yes, I saw who you were telling me about. She's bright and she's good on the field. She's got game, that lil' one." He swept a drop of sweat from his forehead. "And her sidekick, he was impressive out there."
"He comes from years on SWAT." Dan pointed out.
"I can tell. He's got moves and he entered the field with caution, yet sure of himself. I spotted him out before I had even figured he was her friend." He said before taking a sip of water.
"Alright. Then I guess I did well with your recruitment here, Morgan." Dan stood up and held his hand out.
Morgan shook his hand willingly, mouthing a 'thank you' to the man who had given him a chance to work in the FBI again, even if it was just as a training officer. It was a start.
"Hello, I'm looking for someone. Maybe you've seen him around…" Victor approached a bartender, showing the girl a photo of Richard in plain clothes.
"Uh, no." She replied shortly.
"Are you sure? He would have been around, every evening, ordering a glass of wine. I just need to know which table he sat on, or maybe he was at the bar?"
"No, he hasn't been here. Never seen this dude. He's hot, though." The bartender chuckled and Victor tried not to cringe.
He wasn't one to judge, but this girl was showing way too much cleavage and was way too young to even work at a bar, handlng alcohol. She looked sixteen, at best.
"Well, is there anyone else I could talk to? Maybe you weren't on shift when he was around."
"I'm covering for this dude that just got fired. Real douchebag, he'd always roll up to work drunk and high, so the owner gave him the boot and now I'm working five nights a week, stuck in this nasty bar with those nasty assholes asking me for my phone number." She rolled her eyes.
Well, at least she sounded like she hated her job. There was some sort of hope that one day she'd get out of there and do something productive with her life.
But she was the least of Victor's worries. He hadn't seen, nor heard of Richard for three days now and he was starting to get worried.
Richard was the only one who knew all the specifics of this new job and he had refused to tell anyone more than just the outcome, if the job went smoothly. What happened before the final outcome, was strictly Richard's job and was kept a secret.
He had arranged a way of communicating with Victor - he had to go to this bar every night and, based on where he sat, he'd be saying something different to Victor.
Sitting at the bar would mean that everything was okay, but only if he was at the corner, near the rest rooms, whereas the side of the bar, near the entrance door, would communicate trouble that Richard was able to overcome on his own, so there was no need to worry.
Sitting on a table near a window would mean that something unexpected has happened and that Richard was gaining information, while choosing an inner table would mean that he was in immediate danger and in need of back-up, in which case Victor or whoever would be at the bar that night – each night, someone different, never the same person; would need to find a way to introduce themselves to Richard and to go sit with him, under the pretense of having a drink with a stranger.
And then, Richard had never even stepped foot at the bar. He was a big man, very hard not to notice or remember. So, if the bartender said she had never seen him, he surely never was there at all.
"Yo, you came here, snooping, and you won't even grab a drink? Hey? Come on, I can make it fun…" The bartender called out after Victor when he was directed towards the exit.
He turned around slowly, shaking his head. This girl could be his daughter.
"Take care of yourself." He said to her before leaving.
"Hey, daddy's home!" Morgan felt a sense of relief when he opened the door and his son threw himself in his arms, as if he hadn't seen him in months.
"Hey, how was your first day at the Academy?" Savannah welcomed him with a kiss, followed by another one and one more, in addition to that.
"Ugh…" Morgan groaned, crashing on top of the couch.
"That bad, huh?" She sat next to him and let her hand trail up and down the side of his arm.
"It wasn't bad. I enjoyed teaching. It's just…"
"Not the same?" She was quick enough to finish his sentence.
"Yeah. I miss my team. I miss the action. I thought that being there would change things, and it did…for the worse. I kept staring over at Headquarters and mentally cursing the day I took that dumb decision to leave!"
Savannah gave him a look when she heard those words.
"No, okay, that came out wrong. What I mean is, yeah the decision to leave was the right one, at the time. I left, for the sake of this family. Everything that happened to us right before we left…I couldn't risk your life again. So I left, alright, I gotta own that. But…"
Her hand kept on encouraging him, brushing softly against his skin, as she listened to everything he had to say.
"And this house…don't get me started on this house. I hate every corner of it. I can't believe I had four properties before we left and now we don't even have a home. This short term rental thing is not really my thing. Come on, a lease for three months? I mean, that's three months more than what I'm willing to spend in this ruined piece of real estate anyway, but come on…three months? Like the landlords just know how crappy this place is and that they will never find anyone to rent it for longer. Makes me feel like a dumb ass punk for being here, under this damn roof!" He said grumpily, looking around the almost empty living room, with its crooked walls and non-matching furniture.
Savannah chuckled. She knew where this was coming from.
"Derek, you still own four properties here. It's just that there are people, living in them right now. You can't kick them out. The lease on our original home expires in five months and after that we can move back in." She reminded him.
"Six months! Six months of Hell. Plus, where are we going to live if we are only welcome to stay here three months, tops?" He was almost panicking and she could not deny the fact that she liked a worked up Derek.
"We'll figure it out. We always do. In the meantime, we are together, all of us are healthy, our son is starting a new school and we just need to give this time. Everything will go back to normal, sooner or later." She reassured him, giving him more kisses, since just words had never been enough for him.
"You are the best decision I ever made in my life!" He said in between those kisses.
"May I point out another bad decision you've made just recently?" She knew how to break bad news to him - some small talk, some kissing and then boom, the bad news. And then some more kissing, to soften up the blow.
"Please don't." He sighed, knowing perfectly well what she would say next.
"Baby, they love you and they will support you. Not to mention how happy they will be to have you back. You can't isolate yourself at home and go by DeMo at the Academy, hoping that no one would utter your full name, so that no one would figure out you never boarded that plane back home. Or whatever that place was, because I'm not entirely sure it ever felt like 'home' anyway." She shrugged.
They had been living in a new house, by the beach. Their son loved it, but neither of his parents was crazy about that place. It felt bland, at best. It lacked soul. It lacked the voices of eight people that Morgan would have loved to invite over for drinks. He felt dead, living there. That was exactly what he had felt like.
"I can't…" He shook his head. "I've asked around and the BAU has been hit hard lately. I don't want to mess up their dynamics and to get them into trouble by letting them beg for me to come back on the team. I know they'd do that for me. Hell, I want them to do that for me, egoistically, I really do. But I just can't do this. I saw them, they're a complete team now, they have their own inside jokes and…yeah, maybe coming back here was a mistake…"
"Oh, no, baby. Don't you dare second-guess the only good decision you've made for the past few years!" Savannah stopped him right away. "Ok, that came out wrong, but you know what I'm saying."
"I know. It just feels right and yet, so wrong. I don't know how I feel about it. I want my team back, but I also cannot invade their space. Not right now. It's better if I watch from the sidelines." He grabbed the remote, intending on playing whatever channel, just so that he'd look interested and invested, so that she would shut up and leave him alone. He was confused enough and, even though he loved her, he didn't want her opinion on this, mostly because it served to confuse him even more. And also – because he knew she was right.
"Fine. Hide in denial all you want. Just know that they would be heartbroken when they inevitably find out the truth. And everything good that you just did for Emily, will come back to bite you in the ass. She would never forgive you for this stunt, mark my words." Savannah then let him watch cartoons with their son as she went to the kitchen to prepare something for dinner.
"Dude, pick up!" Victor was now pacing up and down the street where Richard lived, calling his phone over and over again.
A quick trip to his home had confirmed that he hadn't been there in a few days. His safe was emptied out and his gun was nowhere to be found. That was hardly good news.
"Pick up!" He muttered to himself, noticing one of Richard's cars parked outside.
He never parked outside. He had a garage, for each vehicle he owned and used. He even had a full sized garage for his motorbike. Why would he leave a car out on the street?
The window of his bedroom was cracked open and Victor knew that Richard would never leave it like this if he was not at home for more than a day.
"Come ooooooon, pick up!" He was getting impatient.
The phone was ringing…until it wasn't anymore.
At some point, Richard's phone went off.
Victor's heart sunk, the second he lost the last hope he had, hope of getting in touch with his best friend and his boss.
He went back to the office and knew that for the next few days he could do nothing, to help Richard out. His hands were tied. All he could do was to step up and be the boss, now that Richard was not there. He needed to trust his best friend and also, he needed to pray for his wellbeing. The little information he had on this job made it sound like a very complicated and risky one.
"Sir, I need to run something by you…oh?" Someone walked in Richard's office, talking to the back of his chair and gasping when that chair turned around, with Victor sitting in it, instead.
"I'm on temporary duty here until Richard comes back. You can run it by me. Come on, show me?" He urged the person to walk in and talk to him.
The person pitched something and Victor hated the idea. It was equally as risky, as what Richard had just gotten himself into.
But he had to keep one thing in mind – he was Richard's temporary substitute for those times when Richard could not be in the office. That meant that Victor had to do things the 'Richard' way, not the 'Victor' way.
"Sounds promising." He stated after the pitch. "I will give this some thought and I'll let Richard sign your permissions, as soon as he gets back. Hopefully soon…"
"Thank you, Sir." The other person said before exiting the office.
"If you die on me one more time, I swear I'll be the one to find you and to put that final bullet to your head, this time!" He groaned, holding a photo of him and Richard, from years ago, in his hands.
Of course Richard would keep framed photos in his office. He was the most amazing person Victor had ever met – loyal, funny, outgoing, a bit weird, and so incredibly devoted to his friendship with Victor.
