FICLET FRIDAY THE SIXTH: ROWOFSTARS
line yourself in chalk part 4, (David/Juliet), G, i move through a different sort of space
Special Agent Juliet Grayson.
She’s official now; they all are, five hours post graduation ceremony and follow up banquet in a Quantico conference room. Monday she reports for assignment, her black suit and trousers already freshly dry cleaned, pressed and hanging in the back seat of her car. She intends to go straight home and call her parents, then maybe her brother Mikey if he isn’t on duty, but Jake catches her as she pushes open the door to the cleaners. Beer and burgers, he says, and rattles off an address which a year from now will be old habit for all of them.
This is how she ends up at the bar, with him.
She glances at him from where she sits alone in a booth at the other end of the room, her fingers moving over the table, to the appetizer menu and back to her beer, where she picks at the edge of the label with her thumbnail. She tries not to think about earlier, about his little blonde haired daughter and her shiny shoes, how the little girl’s mere presence made him beam from ear to ear, wider and brighter than she’d thought possible for the usually reserved David Cole.
She hears him raise his voice, calling out to the group tucked around the corner booth as he moves across the room. He stops for a moment to chat and shake hands, congratulations and teasing remarks all around, then turns and slides into her booth. He shrugs off his leather jacket, laying it next to him in the seat. She sees the slightly faded Rolling Stones logo on his t-shirt, and bites her lip to hide a smile.
It’s odd seeing him out of uniform, and not for the first time she wonders about all those passing moments between them.
“So how’s it feel, Agent Grayson?” he asks, the corner of his mouth lifting slightly.
She smiles and shrugs, fingers tightening around her beer bottle as she tries to channel all her nervous energy into the brown glass.
“Where’s, um, Hannah, is it?” she asks, really not wanting to talk about the swirl of emotions she’s been feeling all week at the prospect of being a fully fledged agent. Sometimes she still wonders if she’s doing the right thing.
“Yeah, Hannah,” he nods, grinning, pleased that at least one person bothers to notice or care about the existence of the most important thing in his life. Then he shrugs. “Babysitter.”
She nods and twists her bottle in her hands, peeling the label a little more.
“Come on,” he says, directing the conversation back to his original question. “Good? Bad? Excited?”
She ignores the comfort with which he seems to have invaded her little space, watching as he steals a fry from her plate, now pushed to the side and relatively discarded, and shrugs again. “Different.”
He nods. “Yeah, it will be. It’s the real deal Monday morning.”
“It’s orientation, actually,” she corrects. “The real deal will be sometime three months from now when we’re finally trusted to be in the field without a leash.”
Her mouth curves into a slow smile, and he laughs.
“I don’t know about that,” he says, pausing to take a long swallow of his beer. She tries not to watch the movement of his throat or the flick of his tongue over his lips. “I’d trust you now.”
She snorts a laugh and shakes her head. “Two weeks ago you were shouting about how we should all just quit and go home if we were going to treat the simulations like a game.”
He turns serious for a moment, and her breathing all but stops when his eyes meet hers.
“I said I’d trust you.” Then he looks away, eyes scanning the room full of plucky young recruits, thinking how at least one in three will wash out or quit, taking their talents elsewhere within four years.
He looks back at her, and reaches out to touch her hand, thumb passing over her knuckles briefly. “You’re not like them.”
She dips her head and tucks a few locks of hair behind her ear, feeling her face grow hot. She doesn’t know what to say, so she settles for a nervous thank you, and is relieved when, a few minutes later, he smiles and slides out of the booth. She watches him cross the room, setting his empty bottle on the bar as he passes, until he leans over a table occupied by the other instructors.
Laughter rises up from the table, and he looks back, catching her gaze, sees her watching him. She can still feel the warm pressure of his hand on hers.
Later, when Frank snatches her plate from the table, she finds his card. On the back is a phone number that she knows isn’t a Bureau number.
line yourself in chalk part 5, (David/Juliet), G, a day takes years for me to trace, while age redecorates my face
Juliet’s sitting at the booth in the corner when he walks in, picking at the label on her beer bottle.
“That seems to be a habit with you,” David says, eyeing her nervous fingers as he slips into the seat across from her.
She instantly stops fidgeting and presses her hands flat to the table. “Sorry.”
His mouth curves and he shakes his head. “It’s okay. What’s up?”
She shrugs and bites her lip, eyes fixed on the curled edge of the label. She lowers a hand to her lap and rubs her palm over her knee.
The bar is light with regulars for a Friday, but there is still the noise, the heavy din of music and conversation and the clink of glasses. She tries to concentrate on the sounds and not on the face in the case file she’s been staring at for weeks, the face she knows is in trouble, but not how to help or where to go.
Anya.
He frowns a little and dips his head, trying to see her face and get a read on why she called him at home, with a slight waver in her voice he’d never heard before. It had him on his feet immediately, not waiting for her to explain, just asking where she was, as if he didn’t already know from the din in the background and the caller id on his phone.
“I’m sorry, sir,” she starts, “I shouldn’t have called you at home, I just -” She stops and finally looks up at him. “Oh, no, your daughter -”
He holds up a hand and shakes his head again. “No school tomorrow, so she’s staying at a friend’s house. It’s fine. I was just getting caught up on the class evaluations.”
“I know how much you love those.”
Her voice is quiet, a little strained, and there’s an edge to it as she tries to keep it from cracking. She lets her mind wander to Will, and the message on her answering machine she hasn’t erased yet, thinking maybe he was more right than she wanted to believe.
He sighs. “Hey.”
His hand settles over her wrist, thumb brushing against her skin in a long slow sweeping motion. His eyes are on her face, and it’s nothing forced, just him touching her, grounding her and bringing her back to the moment.
“You knew when I gave you that card that you could call me anytime, right?” he asks, smiling a little. He waits for her to nod and then says, “I don’t just hand them out to any greenie on the street, Agent Grayson.”
At that she smiles, finally, and exhales, pulling her hand out from under his and taking a sip of her beer. Her body sags back against the bench, and her eyes drift down to the table top once more.
After a moment she looks up, and at him, again.
“Oh,” David says softly, recognizing the tired, lost look in her eyes. “That case.”
Juliet nods and turns her head to glance out the window, using the motion to disguise the quick swipe at her eye. It’s early spring and the days are just beginning to stretch, the sun lingering just enough that she can still see down the street without the glare of the street lights.
“Well,” he starts, “If you've finally had it, you’re going to need something a lot stronger than light beer.”
She smiles a little more and watches as David slides out of the booth and crosses to the bar. He waits and chats quietly with the bartender, Frank, as he pours from one bottle, and then a second.
The ice rattles loudly when David sets the glasses down. “Hope you don’t mind Irish whiskey.” Juliet gives him a look, and he smiles. “Right.”
She takes a sip and then another, wrapping her fingers around the cool wet glass before she speaks, relaying to him the sordid story of her previous month’s work.
She stops a few times, but only for a minute, looking out the window or fiddling with her empty glass before continuing, until almost two hours have passed.
Juliet glances at the clock over the bar and frowns. “It’s late, I’m sorry. You probably need to get home.”
He sighs and stretches. “Oh, yes, my stack of evaluations.”
She smiles and slides out of the booth to stand. “They won’t write themselves.”
He grumbles an affirmative, throws a few bills on the table, and gives her a look when she starts to pull out her wallet. She holds up a hand and heads for the door, with him trailing after her. He walks her to her car and waits while she rummages for her keys.
“You going to be all right?” he asks.
His hand nudges her arm, fingers toying with the idea of curling around it, and she sighs. “Yeah.”
Then a moment later she adds, “Thanks, sir, I -”
“David.”
Her eyes go wide for a second, and then she smiles. “David.”
He grins a little crookedly, trying not to like the way she says his name. Then he nods and turns to walk towards his own car.
“You know, um, if you ever need -,” she calls out, feeling foolish for even suggesting that he might need to call her. He turns back to her and she shrugs nervously. “Anytime. I’m - I’m always around.”
Then she grins. “And I don’t hand out my number to any greenie on the street.”
He laughs. “I’ll remember that.”