Profiler fic: "Beginnings"
Beginnings (1/100)
Summary: How the VCTF all began ... told from Grace's perspective. Consider this a sort of "between the scenes" from "Insight"-- we never will see it but we know it happened.
Author's Note: This is my first fic for the FanFic100 challenge. I'm writing 100 fics about Grace (thus the 1/100 bit, just to keep track) ... so here's the first. Enjoy.
Rating: G
Grace had autopsied a lot of murder victims in ten years and she’d seen a lot of people come in to her morgue for answers. But none caught her attention quite like the man and woman that walked through the doors at the Department of Justice building on Wednesday afternoon.
It was immediately obvious to her that they were with the FBI. Years of watching cops come and go had taught her to spot them a mile away. There was something a little different about the way they carried themselves- their shoulders always seemed a bit more slumped, the weight of responsibility heavy on them.
This pair had the same distinct way of carrying themselves that immediately indicated to Grace that they weren’t just cops, but FBI with the case-load to match. But unlike many FBI agents that Grace had encountered, this pair didn’t give off the vibe that they’d seen too much and were weary of it all. The two of them generated an aura of intensity that was nearly visible. To walk by them was to be nearly staggered by the force of two intense intellects concentrating mightily on the task at hand. It was like, Grace thought, feeling the crackle of energy an electric fence gave off.
The woman was pretty in a pale, porcelain doll sort of way. She was dressed smartly in blacks and pale colors. Her hair was the color of fresh daffodils and was tousled, as if she’d been running her fingers through it.
The man with her stood attentively (or was it protectively?) close. He was dressed in a double breasted suit and a blue tie, impeccable and cool. Despite a face lined by stress and some physical scars, he was darkly handsome.
“Can I answer any questions for you?” Grace asked. She noticed that the woman started a bit at the sound of her voice, as if she’d been thinking hard.
“The autopsy report said she’d been killed by a blow to the head yet there was no debris on the wound. Any idea what did it?”
“A champagne bottle, most likely,” Grace replied. “Something with a heavy base that wouldn’t shatter.”
The woman nodded. Grace could actually see her eyes glaze over as she lost herself in thought.
The man stepped forward and offered his hand. “Bailey Malone.
Grace looked up into eyes the color of a stormy sky. “Dr. Grace Alvarez.”
His face relaxed when he smiled. “Nice to meet you, Doctor. The space case next to me is Dr. Sam Lawson. She’s consulting on the Saturday Night Stalker case.”
“What’s the FBI’s interest in this case?” Grace asked, more because she wanted to see his response to the question than actually caring about the answer.
“Is it that obvious we’re FBI?”
“Even without the badge,” she affirmed.
Malone’s smile widened. “Let’s talk,” he said simply.
***
Grace was mulling over their conversation later that day when the door swung open and footsteps sounded on the floor. She watched a pair of feet approach the autopsy table where she was bent over, taking fingerprints.
“Hi, George,” she said without looking up.
“How could you possibly tell it was me?” he asked.
“Who else wears Doc Martens to work?”
“Guilty. Got a minute?”
“Just about that.” Grace straightened and stretched a crick out of her back. “What’s up?”
“Did you see the Feds John asked in to consult?” He leaned against the steel table and Grace was again struck by the fact that he was one of the only people who would venture inside the morgue to talk to her.
“Is there any particular reason you’re referring to them as Feds?” Grace asked, amused. “You sound like a mobster.”
“Close enough, baby doll,” George said in an affected “Godfather” accent and snapped his gum. “I’m gonna make ‘em an offer they can’t refuse.” He dropped the accent and said, “No, seriously, you saw them, right?”
“I saw them. Talked to him- Bailey Malone, right? Dr. Lawson didn’t have much to say.”
“So what do you think?”
“About what?”
“About John bringing them in now. I mean, we’ve been chasing this nut job for the last four weeks. Where were they then?”
“Chasing some other nut job, probably,” Grace replied. “Why? Are you offended they’re playing on your turf?” Her eyes sparkled wickedly. “Feeling territorial?”
“Maybe a little,” he admitted. “It’s just that I’ve been doing a lot of leg work and suddenly they come in with some hot-shot consultant and negate all of it. Why not bring them in at the beginning, get a profile, save time? Why bring them in now and tell them, ‘Hey, clean slate, start all over. Forget what we’ve been doing- let’s do it your way.’”
“Try not to look at it that way. We’re all after the same goal, right? Catch the bad guy.”
“You are so annoyingly noble,” George complained. “Are you telling me it wouldn’t piss you off just a bit if another M.E. came in out of nowhere and reviewed all of your findings?”
“Okay, you’re right. It would annoy me. But still-“
Grace was interrupted by the doors swinging open. John Grant strode into the morgue, Nathan Brubaker in his wake. Both men were, as usual, dressed to the nines in a wardrobe that caused Grace to dub them the G.Q. Twins. She and George, in their more casual clothes, were less likely to be noticed when placed next to the two detectives, who were both tall with striking good looks that turned heads everywhere.
As far as Grace was concerned, John was an oddity. Even after nearly three years on the job together at APD, she knew next to nothing about him. Outwardly he was a great detective, insightful and intuitive, if blunt to a fault. He had a stubborn streak a mile wide that clashed with her own more often than not. But more than anything, John was enigmatic, keeping the best parts of himself well hidden.
Grace was one of the few women John didn’t hit on. The fact would have insulted her if she hadn’t known that it was because John liked and respected her that he found it difficult to hit on her. That never stopped him- or Nathan-- from occasionally glancing in her direction and giving her a look that would have made her blush if she hadn’t been hardened by years of working with men. Rules barring workplace relationships had yet to stop John from a conquest and she could tell by the gleam in his eyes when he spoke about Sam Lawson that he had fixed his gaze on her like a wolf.
“So, what do you think, Grace?” John asked.
“About?” she asked, tuning back in to the conversation.
“Malone and Lawson. Their working profile.”
“I think anything that lets us catch this animal is a good idea.” She leveled her gaze on John. “I also think there’s more going on here than you’re telling us.”
John said nothing to that, though Nathan turned amused eyes on Grace and said, “You might want to add spookily perceptive to your resume, Grace.”
Grace liked Nathan, from what little she knew of him. He tended to pal around with John, detective to detective, which meant he only came into the morgue if he had no other choice. His intellect was staggering, his mind honed to a keen sharpness. The conversations she had with Nathan, though rare, tended to crackle in the back of her head, even hours after the fact.
“So there is more going on that just consulting?” George asked eagerly.
“Yes, Gossip Queen,” John said with a touch of impatience. “I just don’t know how I feel about it yet.”
“So tell us,” George prompted. “We’ll help you make up your mind.”
“Malone’s talking about a team, a task force that focuses solely on violent crimes around the country. We’d be part of the FBI, invited to crime scenes chosen at Dr. Lawson’s discretion. He wants all of us on it.”
“So what’s the problem?”
“Don’t know that there is one. I just get the feeling there’s something more going on with Malone and Lawson than they’re saying.”
“What do you mean by something?” Grace asked. “Good something? Bad something?” John’s intuition was rarely wrong- not about people anyway. If John was anything at all, it was a good judge of character.
“Don’t know.” He shrugged restlessly. “Just something vaguely askew.”
“Then I say until you’ve got something more concrete than just a feeling, we tell them that we’re going to think about it. I say we see how this case turns out and we go from there.”
“George?” John turned to look at their hacker extraordinaire. “I know you’ve got some skeletons deep in that closet of yours. Anything you don’t want the FBI knowing about?”
George’s brow was furrowed. Grace gazed at her friend and she entertained a moment of fear that she’d end up having to work without him. Some of the skeletons John had mentioned were thoroughly tricky and grotesque.
Though he’d stayed on the right side of the law for the last three years, George and John had had to do some pretty fast talking to get Atlanta P.D. to cut him a break on some serious hacking charges in exchange for his services. George never went into detail with Grace about his past but from what he had told her, she gathered a lot of his entanglements with the wrong people occurred because George was an extremely bright man who was deeply bored with his job.
“Nothing they wouldn’t be able to handle,” George finally said. “You think they know about all of that yet?”
“I think they know everything they want to know about us,” John said. “I think Malone’s been planning this proposal for a long time now.”
“And if that’s the case,” Grace said sensibly, “he also knows that at the end of the day you’re not going to be able to keep from saying no.”
Nathan grinned again. “Again with the scarily perceptive, Grace.”
Grace returned the smile. “And it’s not just John who’s going to say yes. I don’t think the rest of you can resist this any more than I can.”
“So, is that what I’m telling Malone?” John asked. “Are we a team?”
“Yeah,” George said, stepping closer. “We’re a team.”
End.
Summary: How the VCTF all began ... told from Grace's perspective. Consider this a sort of "between the scenes" from "Insight"-- we never will see it but we know it happened.
Author's Note: This is my first fic for the FanFic100 challenge. I'm writing 100 fics about Grace (thus the 1/100 bit, just to keep track) ... so here's the first. Enjoy.
Rating: G
Grace had autopsied a lot of murder victims in ten years and she’d seen a lot of people come in to her morgue for answers. But none caught her attention quite like the man and woman that walked through the doors at the Department of Justice building on Wednesday afternoon.
It was immediately obvious to her that they were with the FBI. Years of watching cops come and go had taught her to spot them a mile away. There was something a little different about the way they carried themselves- their shoulders always seemed a bit more slumped, the weight of responsibility heavy on them.
This pair had the same distinct way of carrying themselves that immediately indicated to Grace that they weren’t just cops, but FBI with the case-load to match. But unlike many FBI agents that Grace had encountered, this pair didn’t give off the vibe that they’d seen too much and were weary of it all. The two of them generated an aura of intensity that was nearly visible. To walk by them was to be nearly staggered by the force of two intense intellects concentrating mightily on the task at hand. It was like, Grace thought, feeling the crackle of energy an electric fence gave off.
The woman was pretty in a pale, porcelain doll sort of way. She was dressed smartly in blacks and pale colors. Her hair was the color of fresh daffodils and was tousled, as if she’d been running her fingers through it.
The man with her stood attentively (or was it protectively?) close. He was dressed in a double breasted suit and a blue tie, impeccable and cool. Despite a face lined by stress and some physical scars, he was darkly handsome.
“Can I answer any questions for you?” Grace asked. She noticed that the woman started a bit at the sound of her voice, as if she’d been thinking hard.
“The autopsy report said she’d been killed by a blow to the head yet there was no debris on the wound. Any idea what did it?”
“A champagne bottle, most likely,” Grace replied. “Something with a heavy base that wouldn’t shatter.”
The woman nodded. Grace could actually see her eyes glaze over as she lost herself in thought.
The man stepped forward and offered his hand. “Bailey Malone.
Grace looked up into eyes the color of a stormy sky. “Dr. Grace Alvarez.”
His face relaxed when he smiled. “Nice to meet you, Doctor. The space case next to me is Dr. Sam Lawson. She’s consulting on the Saturday Night Stalker case.”
“What’s the FBI’s interest in this case?” Grace asked, more because she wanted to see his response to the question than actually caring about the answer.
“Is it that obvious we’re FBI?”
“Even without the badge,” she affirmed.
Malone’s smile widened. “Let’s talk,” he said simply.
***
Grace was mulling over their conversation later that day when the door swung open and footsteps sounded on the floor. She watched a pair of feet approach the autopsy table where she was bent over, taking fingerprints.
“Hi, George,” she said without looking up.
“How could you possibly tell it was me?” he asked.
“Who else wears Doc Martens to work?”
“Guilty. Got a minute?”
“Just about that.” Grace straightened and stretched a crick out of her back. “What’s up?”
“Did you see the Feds John asked in to consult?” He leaned against the steel table and Grace was again struck by the fact that he was one of the only people who would venture inside the morgue to talk to her.
“Is there any particular reason you’re referring to them as Feds?” Grace asked, amused. “You sound like a mobster.”
“Close enough, baby doll,” George said in an affected “Godfather” accent and snapped his gum. “I’m gonna make ‘em an offer they can’t refuse.” He dropped the accent and said, “No, seriously, you saw them, right?”
“I saw them. Talked to him- Bailey Malone, right? Dr. Lawson didn’t have much to say.”
“So what do you think?”
“About what?”
“About John bringing them in now. I mean, we’ve been chasing this nut job for the last four weeks. Where were they then?”
“Chasing some other nut job, probably,” Grace replied. “Why? Are you offended they’re playing on your turf?” Her eyes sparkled wickedly. “Feeling territorial?”
“Maybe a little,” he admitted. “It’s just that I’ve been doing a lot of leg work and suddenly they come in with some hot-shot consultant and negate all of it. Why not bring them in at the beginning, get a profile, save time? Why bring them in now and tell them, ‘Hey, clean slate, start all over. Forget what we’ve been doing- let’s do it your way.’”
“Try not to look at it that way. We’re all after the same goal, right? Catch the bad guy.”
“You are so annoyingly noble,” George complained. “Are you telling me it wouldn’t piss you off just a bit if another M.E. came in out of nowhere and reviewed all of your findings?”
“Okay, you’re right. It would annoy me. But still-“
Grace was interrupted by the doors swinging open. John Grant strode into the morgue, Nathan Brubaker in his wake. Both men were, as usual, dressed to the nines in a wardrobe that caused Grace to dub them the G.Q. Twins. She and George, in their more casual clothes, were less likely to be noticed when placed next to the two detectives, who were both tall with striking good looks that turned heads everywhere.
As far as Grace was concerned, John was an oddity. Even after nearly three years on the job together at APD, she knew next to nothing about him. Outwardly he was a great detective, insightful and intuitive, if blunt to a fault. He had a stubborn streak a mile wide that clashed with her own more often than not. But more than anything, John was enigmatic, keeping the best parts of himself well hidden.
Grace was one of the few women John didn’t hit on. The fact would have insulted her if she hadn’t known that it was because John liked and respected her that he found it difficult to hit on her. That never stopped him- or Nathan-- from occasionally glancing in her direction and giving her a look that would have made her blush if she hadn’t been hardened by years of working with men. Rules barring workplace relationships had yet to stop John from a conquest and she could tell by the gleam in his eyes when he spoke about Sam Lawson that he had fixed his gaze on her like a wolf.
“So, what do you think, Grace?” John asked.
“About?” she asked, tuning back in to the conversation.
“Malone and Lawson. Their working profile.”
“I think anything that lets us catch this animal is a good idea.” She leveled her gaze on John. “I also think there’s more going on here than you’re telling us.”
John said nothing to that, though Nathan turned amused eyes on Grace and said, “You might want to add spookily perceptive to your resume, Grace.”
Grace liked Nathan, from what little she knew of him. He tended to pal around with John, detective to detective, which meant he only came into the morgue if he had no other choice. His intellect was staggering, his mind honed to a keen sharpness. The conversations she had with Nathan, though rare, tended to crackle in the back of her head, even hours after the fact.
“So there is more going on that just consulting?” George asked eagerly.
“Yes, Gossip Queen,” John said with a touch of impatience. “I just don’t know how I feel about it yet.”
“So tell us,” George prompted. “We’ll help you make up your mind.”
“Malone’s talking about a team, a task force that focuses solely on violent crimes around the country. We’d be part of the FBI, invited to crime scenes chosen at Dr. Lawson’s discretion. He wants all of us on it.”
“So what’s the problem?”
“Don’t know that there is one. I just get the feeling there’s something more going on with Malone and Lawson than they’re saying.”
“What do you mean by something?” Grace asked. “Good something? Bad something?” John’s intuition was rarely wrong- not about people anyway. If John was anything at all, it was a good judge of character.
“Don’t know.” He shrugged restlessly. “Just something vaguely askew.”
“Then I say until you’ve got something more concrete than just a feeling, we tell them that we’re going to think about it. I say we see how this case turns out and we go from there.”
“George?” John turned to look at their hacker extraordinaire. “I know you’ve got some skeletons deep in that closet of yours. Anything you don’t want the FBI knowing about?”
George’s brow was furrowed. Grace gazed at her friend and she entertained a moment of fear that she’d end up having to work without him. Some of the skeletons John had mentioned were thoroughly tricky and grotesque.
Though he’d stayed on the right side of the law for the last three years, George and John had had to do some pretty fast talking to get Atlanta P.D. to cut him a break on some serious hacking charges in exchange for his services. George never went into detail with Grace about his past but from what he had told her, she gathered a lot of his entanglements with the wrong people occurred because George was an extremely bright man who was deeply bored with his job.
“Nothing they wouldn’t be able to handle,” George finally said. “You think they know about all of that yet?”
“I think they know everything they want to know about us,” John said. “I think Malone’s been planning this proposal for a long time now.”
“And if that’s the case,” Grace said sensibly, “he also knows that at the end of the day you’re not going to be able to keep from saying no.”
Nathan grinned again. “Again with the scarily perceptive, Grace.”
Grace returned the smile. “And it’s not just John who’s going to say yes. I don’t think the rest of you can resist this any more than I can.”
“So, is that what I’m telling Malone?” John asked. “Are we a team?”
“Yeah,” George said, stepping closer. “We’re a team.”
End.