The world stood still and rushed by all at the same time.

Hensley felt as though a pile of bricks had come crashing down on her body. Her skin tingled from the impact, heart racing while her mind tried to orient itself. Poor Jasper probably got a headache from the rush of emotions she experienced. Happiness that Kaufmann was alive, worry at the depth in his eyes and the furrow in his brow, anger that he'd blown her then had the audacity to show up like…. Well, no. She supposed he wasn't showing up like everything was fine.

Hensley knew exactly what he was saying with just one word. But if he was serious, then that meant…. What about Red? What about Davidson? Had it gotten worse? Were they taking over? Out of control? Kaufmann was the only one of them that had been potentially capable of fighting a vampire on their own. Now he was gone. That meant that Red was alone. Or maybe Red was no more. Had it caved in? Davidson caught or taken over? Agency destroyed?

Her spiraling thoughts all came down to three words.

"Oh my God."

She pulled him in for a hug, her breath stuttering in her chest as her brain struggled to process what it all could mean. He was still warm, still human based on the slowness of his heart. He was okay.

He was safe.

At least for now.

Hensley pulled away, "You're out?"

Kaufmann – Preston – nodded. "Out. As of two days ago. Took a while to drive up."

"You came here?"

His mouth opened, then closed, almost as if he were searching for the right words. "Didn't know where else to go." He settled on, sounding so far from the confident man Hensley had spent all that time with.

"You're always welcome here." Carlisle murmured, closing the door as if to prove his point.

Kaufmann nodded, adjusting the grip on his duffle bag. The exact one Anderson had left the Agency with. The exact one she had left the Agency with.

"So, what happened?" If he thought she was going to let him off easy, he was dead wrong. He owed her an explanation. She'd driven all the way down to Georgia for him to blow her off. He had to have a good reason for it.

Kaufmann shrugged again, eyes dancing between her and the ground. "It was time to go." He didn't answer the question she'd been trying to ask – not that he knew that. Still, she took the opportunity to pry into her second biggest curiosity.

"And Red?"

"Still in."

Her eyes narrowed, mind reeling from his statement. Kaufmann left but Red stayed? "So he's got no one on the inside with him now?"

"I mean…Hanson is there. And they replaced you…."

"You know that's not what I mean. Something is going on that's bad enough for you to leave. And now Red doesn't have anyone in there he's known for more than five seconds."

"He's known most of the people in there for longer than five seconds. Longer than a year, even…." Kaufmann peeked up at her through the fringe of his hair, seeing how well the joke would land. Not very well.

She rolled her eyes, baffled that he could jest at a time when one of their closest friends was in danger. She turned on her heel sharply to head back to the living room.

"Aww, come on," Kaufmann called after her, following her into the room until he could grab her arm and make her face him. "You know I'm messin' around."

"You know, not everything is a joke, Kaufmann." Hensley snapped, sharper than he had expected.

He frowned once more at her tone, looking quite lost. "What's the matter with you?"

"Me?!" Hensley pointed to herself. He abandoned his friend, blew her off, then had the audacity to show up like everything was fine or like a little innocent lost puppy, and she was the problem? "What's wrong with me? Have you lost your mind? You threw Red to the damn wolves and you-you blew me off, both of you, and now you show up looking for a place to stay - not even caring about what you did, and I'm the problem?!"

Kaufmann's eyes never left her face. He took a couple breaths, nice and slow. In and out. The third time he hoped his mouth, his voice was hard but even, bag slowly falling to his feet. "First of all, you don't even know what's goin' on. Second of all, I have never, not once, blown you off. When you went on your little vampire hunt, who was the first person you called? Who helped you out? Me. Third of all, do ya really think I don't give a shit about Red and would ditch him at first opportunity? You're out for one month and suddenly you think that little of me?"

Hensley sighed, giving him one last unsure shrug. "I don't know, Kaufmann. You're full of surprises lately."

That much she knew to be true. Kaufmann had a point about being there for her earlier in the year. She had needed him, he was her first call, and he stepped up and covered for her with Davidson without a single question asked. And she couldn't say that had been the first time he'd done such a thing for her.

But lately, she didn't know what to think of him. He led her on a wild goose-chase across the country, which ended in her completely wasting her time and money. Whether or not he wanted to call it him blowing her off, that was exactly what he had done. And now, he left the Agency, something she never thought he'd do….

She didn't know what to think of him.

"S'what keeps the ladies interested in me." Kaufmann watched Hensley's face, carefully scanning it to see if she'd crack.

An eyeroll was all he received.

"Who would want to send Lexi down to Georgia?" Edward interjected, Bella positioned carefully at his side. Both Hensley and Kaufmann looked over at him, both confused at his words, just for different reasons.

"What are you talking about?" Hensley asked.

"Who are you talking about?" Kaufmann frowned.

Edward paused a moment, likely reading Kaufmann's mind, before the corner of his mouth quirked up, "Sorry. Lexi – Alexandria." He nodded towards Hensley.

The lightbulb clicked for Kaufmann then and he chuckled at the situation. "Oh! Hensley." He shook his head as he looked back at her. "That's gonna take some gettin' used to. What about Georgia now?"

"Who would want to send her to Georgia?"

Hensley could feel the confusion around the room, each of them looking at Edward like he'd gravely misunderstood the conversation. He knew Kaufmann sent her down to Georgia. Well, Kaufmann and Red.

"What are you talking about?" She tried again, making an attempt to follow Edward's thought process.

Edward gestured towards Kaufmann, "He doesn't know why you're upset with him."

"I don't know why you're upset with me." Kaufmann confirmed with a single nod. The tension had left his shoulders, giving him more of the carefree look she was used to. Still, whatever he and Edward knew, it hadn't clicked for her yet.

"You blew me off." She told him again, though this time her voice held far more confusion. Was Edward insinuating….

"When?"

Hensley's eyes flashed over to Edward. Her brother gave her his signature 'told you' look and she huffed. "When you text me-"

"Recently?" Kaufmann looked shocked to hear such news and the air that had become thick with confusion then became thick with anxiety. A pit dropped into her stomach and for a moment she couldn't answer him, wasn't sure she could move or breathe properly. Jasper was beside her in an instant, picking up on the drastic shift in her emotions, raw fear clawing at her chest, threatening to take over. His touch was grounding, pushing just enough peace into her head for her mind to function again.
Breathe. In. Out.

Faces flashed through her mind as she tried to piece together who she could've been talking to. If it wasn't Kaufmann, had it been Davidson? No, Davidson wouldn't have left Hensley alone. Unless he did because Jasper had been with her. She thought too long. Kaufmann snapped his fingers at her, waving her forward. "Hensley."

"Ten days ago." She answered, her voice barely audible, eyes on the floor in front of her as she worked. Kaufmann began pacing, his usual tactic for dealing with stress. If she had been feeling cheeky, she would've counted the two seconds until his right hand went to his hair, pushing the shaggy curls back out of his face.

But there was no time for playing.

She exhaled a shaky breath, forcing her eyes to meet her father's.

Someone had been playing her.

Someone had been trying to get to her.

"It doesn't make sense." Kaufmann muttered, wandering back towards her then. "What would someone want with you? You-you're out. You don't know nothin'. Did Davidson say somethin' to ya? Anything?"

Hensley shook her head. Davidson had hardly acknowledged her presence once he had her transferred. Certainly hadn't talked to her. The most words they had exchanged was when Carlisle came to examine her in the medical wing, and even those had been directed at her father, not her.

"What was he doing with them?" Edward asked, once again privy to thoughts and information that Hensley was not. She swore she was going to make Kaufmann duct tape his hand to hers so she could know things too.

He shrugged in response to Edward's question. "Didn't stick around to find out. I can take one at a time, and that's just a guess. Shit goes bad…I wasn't stickin' around to die."

Kaufmann could take one at a time. What was he doing with them…the hybrids were the only thing that fit. Maybe Kaufmann found Anderson's papers after all.

"You know about Davidson's side project?" She asked him.

Despite everything they were learning, despite the confusion and stress of it all, Kaufmann grinned, "Well, hot damn. Look who's full of surprises now. Didn't think you knew about that."

Despite the night, Hensley smiled too. "I wish I could say it was all me. I didn't know anything when I left. Anderson met up with me last month. He was the one who told me."

"Did ya tell him to hide his fuckin' papers in an easier spot next time? God damn."

She giggled at Kaufmann's dramatics, breathing just a little easier as the realization that Kaufmann was still Kaufmann took the forefront of her mind. "I told him you guys still hadn't found it when I left."

"Did he tell you where he left it? Did he tell you what a dick he was?" Kaufmann narrowed his eyes, stepping towards her as though he was going to tell her some great heist plan. When she shook her head, he continued, voice low. "The fuckin' refrigerator door. Asshole took the damn thing apart and hid them in there. Tell me that's not a fuckin' secret compartment."

Hensley burst out laughing, mind filled then with the mental image of Kaufmann ranting around that little apartment while Red worked to put the door back together. Though it wasn't his nickname, she imagined that Kaufmann was quite…red that night.

"Know how we found it?" Her old roommate was in full story mode now, complete with shit-eating grin and wagging eyebrows. "I came home piss drunk one night-"

"Of course you did."

He shrugged, not even attempting to deny anything about his habits. "And I shut the door a little too hard on accident. Next mornin', Officer Red is on the case. Any time one of us opened or closed the door, he's all," Kaufmann stood straight up, eyes narrowed, lips pressed together just as Red did whenever he was trying to discern a smell or a sound. Hensley couldn't help her glee at the impression. "What was that?" Even his voice was nearly spot on, deep and accusatory as though you personally made the noise to spite him.

Kaufmann broke too easily, chuckling hard as he leaned in once more. "This guy, he fuckin' oiled that door every night for two weeks." He tossed his head back then, laughing so hard his face turned red. "Finally, he got pissed off enough he took the damn thing apart. I never laughed so hard in my life. After I swore to kill the kid, anyway."

"Naturally." It was Kaufmann threatening to kill Anderson that Hensley had pictured earlier. Now that he talked about it, laughing at Red's pain was obviously the next thing Kaufmann would do. Maybe Red finally got fed up and kicked Kaufmann out of the Agency.

"You got his number? You think he'd know who was textin' ya? I mean, sounds like he knew the most outta all of us."

Hensley did have his number. The number he left her on her car when she had been searching for Jasper. That didn't mean it was still his number.

But, if they wanted any chance at figuring out who was behind it all, she supposed it was their next logical step. Besides, they were stronger together. If only they could get Red back with them. The four of them would be unstoppable, just like they used to be.

Hensley smiled to herself as she typed out the message to Anderson. Getting the group back together…why did she like the sound of that so much?