Two Steps Back...
Certain Methods
Word Count: 2,614
Rating: PG-13
Pairing/Characters: Okay, definitely going down the Dani/Nico route, definitely some Harriet/Bud. Not sure about the Harm/Mac angle yet. But Chegwidden features heavily/centrally to the story, too.
Spoilers: Although I reference something from 1x12, I'm actually going to set this after 1x10 for Necessary Roughness. For JAG? Um... season two, definitely related to that season. Specifically "Secrets" and "Ghosts," and a lot of this won't make sense if you don't know those eps. Otherwise, the spoilers/timeline from JAG is kind of... vague.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything. I just break things.
Summary: Direct, indirect. Legal, illegal. Military, Civilian. Every person has a different method for handling situations. Some are better than others.
Author's Note: And we go back a little, in more than one sense...
Backtracking
"And that is why I am no longer allowed to go in Saks," Juliette finished, leaving Harriet giggling, and Bud's eyes wide and stunned. Dani wanted to laugh, but the story wasn't really funny as much as it was tragic, and Juliette didn't even realize it. She was a girl who had been raised with money and privilege, with a lack of guidance and responsibility, allowed to experience an overindulgence that made her think that her life, while on the surface one of luxury and decadence, was all there was. That emptiness and abandonment had shaped her, left her feeling that the only way to have any kind of attention was to act out. Her behavior was shocking, even appalling in some of the stories, but she didn't see it for what it was, didn't see how much she'd hurt herself and others around her.
In many ways, Juliette was almost a typical cliché of a rich girl, spoiled and neglected, but she was not just that, either. She had something more than the distant employees that raised her and her parents. She had Nico. Those were the stories that Dani enjoyed hearing more than the others. Those ones were happier, even when Juliette was telling them about some kind of mistake that she had made that Nico bailed her out of. No, his habit of enabling her wasn't one that should be admired, but then again, those stories were also the ones where Juliette could tell that someone cared about her.
"What about you? What's the worst thing you ever did while shopping, Dani?"
"Uh..."
"I have a few stories," Harriet began, and Bud looked at her. She grinned. "Of course, one of them I promised Bud I wouldn't tell and another one I don't think he wants to hear."
He gave her a worried look. She gave him a big smile and patted his cheek. They were amusing to watch-and it made Dani a bit jealous, too. She had never experienced that, not even when she and Ray were really in love.
"I think we've shared enough embarrassing stories for one day. Bud might never be the same after all this," Dani said, and Bud got red. He tried to smile, but he was clearly uncomfortable with the subject matter, at least. She felt a bit sorry for him, since she and everyone could pretty much guess what that other story of Harriet's was.
They looked up as the door opened again. Chegwidden brought Nico back into the room, helping him along as he did. "I have another patient for you, Doctor."
"Shut up, AJ. She's not that kind of doctor," Nico grumbled, and Dani looked over at them, watching Nico sit down and shaking her head. She didn't think that she wanted to know. They were constantly bickering, and it was amusing most of the time, but right now, she didn't feel quite as amused as she usually did. "You don't have to do anything, Doctor. I am fine."
"I'll believe that when I see it, and right now, I am not seeing it," Dani muttered. She could not believe that he'd managed to get himself injured again. He really had no sense of self-preservation, did he? What was it this time? Another fight? Or worse-another explosion? "What is wrong with you, Nico? Are you trying to get yourself killed?"
"No, I am not. This is not about that."
"You have to at least stay alive long enough to find out if you're really my father," Juliette said, trying to make it sound like a joke, but Dani caught the tone in her voice. Nico was someone that had been there for her, and she was genuinely worried about losing him.
"He left plenty of blood behind that could have been tested."
"Hey, I didn't ask for Osborne to come up when I was dealing with contacts from... my past," Nico added the last part a bit distastefully. "It was handled, but it was not ideal, I agree. I was not alone, though, if that was your concern."
"I could have been too late, and then where would you be?"
"In a different stage of the game, I suppose."
"Dani, can you smack my maybe-father and remind him he's not allowed to die if he is my father? Or if he isn't?" Juliette asked, shaking her head. "This isn't funny. I can handle being under house arrest-I was just in rehab. I get it, okay? I know this is for our protection, and I think I've been pretty good about it. But I am not good with losing him right now."
Nico frowned. "Aren't you supposed to be angry with me for the whole confusion over who your father is?"
"My mom's the slut. You're just the one who fell for her crap."
"Nicely put, Juliette."
She shrugged. Dani sighed. It was time to take charge of this conversation somehow. "Okay, first, we're going to look at that wound. I know I'm not that kind of doctor, Nico, but you'll shut up and let me look because I am a mother, and if I haven't seen it and bandaged it, it almost doesn't exist."
He gave her a look. She folded her arms over her chest. "Should I have the admiral hold you down for me?"
Bud coughed. "Uh, Ma'am?"
She turned back to look at him. "Yes, Lieutenant?"
"Uh, I just... Not sure you can order the admiral around. Dani. Ma'am. Uh, I think I should go check with the guards. Yeah, that's it."
Dani faced Nico again. "Well?"
"Stop fussing."
"Stop moving."
"I think you two act like you're already married," Juliette observed, instantly stopping the bickering between Nico and Santino. AJ wanted to laugh. The looks on their faces was entirely worth it, and then Sims made it even better by taking a picture.
"I want a copy of that one."
"Yes, sir," she agreed with a smile. That woman was a valuable part of his organization, though sometimes he found her behavior just as irritating as the others. Still, he'd be a fool if he didn't realize that his ship ran smoothly because of her presence. Of course it did. She was a big part of keeping the administrative part of the job from falling apart, especially since no one else wanted to do it. He could order them to do it, he had that power and authority, but then she made it all look easy.
"This is not funny," Nico muttered. "Doctor Santino is in the process of a divorce, and even were that not the case, there are other men in that equation who are not me. A certain JD Aldridge, and if not him, then Matthew Donnally."
Santino's head jerked up, startled, and she started to shake her head. "JD went to Africa, which I thought you knew, and there's nothing between me and Matt."
"Not now, perhaps, but there was, and were it not for Ms. Radcliffe-who is, I might add, no longer in the equation, either-there would be," Nico said, not realizing how much he gave away with the tone he had. "I think my side is sufficiently treated. You can stop prodding it and cover it with the bandage now. I have other things I should be doing."
"No, you should rest," Santino disagreed immediately. She didn't seem comfortable with the revelation of her private life to everyone, and judging from the confusion around the room, no one else saw this thing with Aldridge or Donnally, not that Sims or Roberts knew Santino personally. Juliette, though, she shook her head. She clearly didn't care for at least one of the other woman's choices. "Stay put. You can afford to take a few minutes, though it really should be hours, and you should sleep."
"She's got a point, Nico. You're running damn close to empty, and we need you back at the top of your game to finish this out," AJ agreed. The other man gave him a dark look, but he relented as Chegwidden hauled him to his feet, helping him back to one of the bedrooms. "You could have mentioned the others before."
"The men in her life, you mean?"
"The competition, yes," Chegwidden agreed. "You knew that everyone was making assumptions about you and her. Why not say something then?"
Nico shrugged as he sat down on the bed. "The feelings you assume on my side, at least, are still there. It's not something I can afford to acknowledge, but that does not mean that they are not there. I am not ignorant, though. I know about her personal life. It falls-fell-under my role of keeping her protected as a Hawks asset. I looked into Aldridge, and I knew about her before Donnally introduced her to the team. As much as it disgusts me, his personal life is a concern of mine, too. Same with the players. I know more dirty laundry than I would ever want to know. After a while, it becomes routine. I became desensitized, like with the killing. Had to, or I'd never have stayed in this job for as long as I did."
"I still don't see why you think Pittman deserved that much from you," AJ admitted. He didn't. The man was a pig at best, and that was an insult to pigs. "Though if you felt the need to punish yourself for what you did, I can see you picking Pittman for that. You certainly suffered enough there, didn't you?"
"I suppose," Nico agreed, kicking off his shoes and lying back against the pillow. "We checked for bugs and transmissions, didn't we?"
"Yes, even though you carry those signal jammers in your coat, we checked you after your fight with Osborne. He didn't plant anything on you unless it was something small and on the damn knife."
"Nothing to be done about that part, then. We'll know soon enough if he knows. He'll come for me again. That is a part of the plan."
"You need to sleep. At least two hours, Lieutenant. That's an order."
"Can't order me to sleep," Nico said, shaking his head even as his eyes closed. AJ smiled to himself and shut the door behind him.
"No one can own the darkness. It owns them."
Osborne laughed. "And is that what happened to you, Careles? Does the darkness own you?"
"It always has."
Nico watched the other man carefully, trying to gauge when Osborne would make his move. The other man was armed. Nico was not. He knew that it would have been little advantage if he was in better shape. He could have easily disarmed the other man and eliminated that advantage completely. In his current state, that wasn't as much of a guarantee as it would have been. He probably wouldn't get the weapon, but he didn't need to have it. He just needed to make this fight convincing.
And not die in the process.
Chegwidden was around somewhere. At least, Nico assumed that he was. He'd left an obvious enough trail for his former commanding officer. It should have been something that AJ could follow. The others-the members of AJ's staff, they'd thought Nico needed protection, but he would have been fine if he'd only done what he set out to do. Now he had to keep himself alive long enough to plant the tracker and get the names back to the others.
Simple enough.
"You still going to blame what we are on the darkness? On the past? You know it's not that simple," Osborne disagreed. "They want to dictate our decisions with laws and rules and morals, but there is no reason for them. Civilization is an illusion. We make our own laws and rules, men like us."
"No, you throw them away, and I am not like you," Nico said, glaring at the other man. He was not like him. He might have killed, but he didn't do it for the same reasons. He didn't blindly accept orders. He didn't do it for the thrill or because it was for his country. It was still a decision, a choice, and each time, he'd made it or rejected it, right up until the point he basically drank himself out of the navy. He could do his job-he could still kill-when he was drinking. It took the edge off of it, helped numb him to what he he was doing. It was when every waking moment needed to be numbed that Nico knew he had a problem.
He'd taken the dishonorable discharge, and he'd attempted to start over. He had made the wrong choice, serving out a debt to Pittman, but eventually, he'd sobered up and made it work. He had some kind of a life. A life where he did not kill.
That life was, of course, what Osborne wanted to take away from him. He'd waited all this time for Nico to have something worth taking, and now he was doing it, piece by piece. Even if he didn't know what he was doing, it was what Osborne had done.
"You know better than that. You and are are part of the same," Osborne insisted. "You know that we could do so much more than this. All you have to do is accept it."
"Accept what? That you intend to kill me and anyone connected to me? I am not going to accept that. Ever. You will be the one that ends up dead, I can promise you that."
"What, because you've teamed up with Chegwidden? He couldn't kill me before, and he won't kill me now. You know better than to think he'll finish what you started. If the judge's death couldn't bring him to kill me, nothing will."
Nico knew that Osborne was wrong. If he'd touched even one hair on Francesca's hands, AJ would have strangled Osborne with his bare hands. You didn't mess with a man's family. The judge had been loved, but she was not AJ's blood like Francesca was.
"You can't corrupt everyone. It doesn't work that way."
"You and I are already corrupt."
Nico hated the truth of that statement, but he refused to let himself be baited. He was not going to make the first move, not one made in anger. Osborne would do that. Nico would not. "You were corrupt long before I knew you, and you never brought me down to your level."
"You can't deny what you are. You've been running from it for a long time, but you have that blood inside you. You know what it is. You know what you are."
"He did acknowledge me as a part of the family, yes. Did that ever happen with you?" Nico asked. He shook his head, answering his own question. "Of course not. You didn't have the right nationality, did you? Not enough of it, at least."
Osborne lunged for Nico, the sudden attack not unexpected but still catching him unprepared. He hit the wall, and Osborne stabbed a knife into Nico's side. Grunting, Nico reached into his pocket and took out the tracker, attaching it to Osborne's coat as he shoved the other man away.
Nico looked down at the rip in his clothes, trying to ignore the stinging pain in his side. Osborne came back, swiping with the knife. Nico ducked, and they started to struggle until someone pulled Osborne off, punching him right in the face.
Nico shook his head as Chegwidden offered a hand to help him up. "You're late."
"And you're about as lucky as usual, Lieutenant," AJ muttered. "Let's get out of here."
Chapter Fifteen