More Wine! - August 9th
Twisted Shorts August Fic-a-Day Challenge - Day 9
Title: More Wine!
Author: hermione2be
Rating: PG/FR13/K+
Crossover: BtVS/ Criminal Minds
Disclaimer: I do not own any of BtVS/Angel or Criminal Minds people, places, or ideas. This fiction is done simply for pleasure and I receive no profit.
Summary: Dawn and Spike go on a mission, only to be spectators to the BAU.
Notes: Dawn of the IC Part 5 - Links Page
Seasons: Post-Series/Season 11 “Entropy”
Characters: Dawn, Spike, Rossi, J.J., Spencer, Morgan
Word Count: 2630
Dawn pulled her car to a stop and got out. Her companion followed.
“Why did you choose me for this?” she asked.
“Because you and I haven’t had dinner together in a while,” Spike responded. His brown hair was slicked back, his black slacks and blue sweater were posh. She wore a dark lavender, knee-length dress. Her dark hair was twisted up in an elegant bun. She held a medium clutch.
They had hurried to the restaurant when they had gotten word the meet location had changed. A collection of half-demon hitmen were dropping dead. Two had been killed a month or so before, the other months ago. That left two, the most dangerous. A meet had been planned then moved.
“Why move here?” she asked.
“Smaller restaurant,” he commented.
Dawn paused as she caught sight of someone familiar.
“Dave?” she greeted.
His eyes widened and he made a small gesture. “You must have me mistaken for someone else.”
“I’m so sorry,” she said, feigning embarrassment as he continued past.
Spike took her arm and set it on his. “Done embarrassing yourself?”
“Not yet, I need you to listen for something nearby, doesn’t belong,” she whispered.
“Got it,” he said after a moment.
“FBI?” she asked.
“Sounds like.”
“Looks like they may be here for the same reason we are,” Dawn told him.
“Does that change anything?”
“Won’t know until we have all the players in place. But we should be able to do this without outing our world.”
Dawn let Spike pull open the door. She immediately saw J.J. at the bar. She discretely scanned the rest of the area spotting Morgan and Tara in one corner and Rossi in another.
“I’m going to need you to tap into your inner William,” she whispered. She saw Spencer at a table by himself. “We desperately need alcohol to get through this third date.”
Spike nodded and slowly his demeanor changed. He went from very confident and in charge to anxious. He leaned over to the host and said in a hushed tone, his accent cultured, “Please tell me it’s going to be ten minutes or so, I really need a drink.” He awkwardly handed over a bill.
The host nodded. “It will be a few minutes, you can wait at the bar and I will let you know when your table is ready.”
“Thank you,” Spike said, relieved. He sat next to J.J. while Dawn sat on the other side of him.
Dawn ran her fingers over her right ear, enacting a small, hearing enhancement spell. It took several minutes before Spike was able to construct a minor accident to draw J.J.’s attention naturally and allow them a moment of conversation. He spilled J.J.’s drink on the bar. The three of them rushed to stop the liquid from reaching them.
“What are you doing here?” J.J. asked as though responding to Spike’s rather panicked apologies.
“We had a lead on a hit-woman,” Dawn replied. “We came to flush her out. You’re here for the same reason?”
“Yeah, Spence is acting as her client.”
“Okay.” She acknowledged. “He wants someone killed?”
“Wife,” J.J. told them.
“Is he armed?”
“Yes.”
Spike shook his head. “That’s not good.”
“Sir,” the host said forcefully. “Your table is ready.”
“Of course. Please, um, add this lady’s tab to my bill for the evening.”
“That’s not necessary,” J.J. said.
“It’s the least I-I can do, miss,” he said. “I’m so sorry.”
Dawn followed next to Spike. They were going to pass right by Spencer. “My turn to be a klutz,” she whispered so Spike would know what she was doing.
She teetering a moment on her high heel and fell right into Spencer’s lap, racking her hip on the table and rattling the table’s contents.
“Oh, my God,” she screeched slightly in embarrassment, her entire face heating as she tried to keep from flashing the room. She felt Spencer’s gun tucked in his pants. She reached for his left hand, which had gone to the booth seat in surprise. The ring was soft and smooth. She fingered hers off her thumb and stole the one he wore, swapping them. The entire time apologizing and stuttering through embarrassed attempts to get up gracefully.
“I’m sorry,” she said softly, grabbing his gun with her clutch as Spike helped her to her feet. “I’m so sorry,” she said for their audience, touching her flushed cheeks.
“It-it’s okay,” Spencer managed. “There’s no harm done.”
“Unless she scared off our unsub,” Morgan muttered through the coms the team had in place.
Dawn kept her gaze on the table as she mumbled another embarrassed apology. Spike steered her to a table not far away where she would be able to listen, and he would be able to see and listen to the table. She fiddled with her clutch, stowing the gun and too nice gold band she had taken from Spencer.
Then she looked at Spike and placed her hands over her face. “I forgot I could blush that hard.”
“You’re quite convincing,” he noted.
“Years of practice,” she muttered from behind her hands.
Spike gently took her hands down and appeared to be consoling her. “Some of that was real.”
She flushed slightly. “It’s not every day I fall into someone’s lap.”
He grinned, a soft, William-version of his leer. “I think it was who you fell into.”
“You read too much into things,” she told him. Taking a deep breath, she relaxed. Acting like she had just convinced herself the situation was not as embarrassing as she thought.
A waiter greeted them and read off the specials. They ordered food and Spike ordered them wine. They had just received their glasses when a woman sat down with Spencer. To anyone else it sounded like an awkward blind date, which was probably the point.
Spike and Dawn kept up a conversation as their food came. Both of them cringed internally as they listened to the conversation Spencer was having with the assassin.
“Does he really have three PhDs?” Spike asked before taking a sip of his wine.
“Yeah, they keep as close to the truth as possible to make the lies easier to remember,” she explained with a cute grin. Then she touched his hand. “It was always your downfall when you were evil. You tried to go too big.”
There was a moment where his cover as William and his indignation as Spike warred with him. Finally he muttered, “Shut up, Bit.”
She withdrew her hand and laughed. “Good wine.” She picked up her glass, it tipping precariously before she had a firm grip. She flushed.
“Tell me about your wife,” the assassin was saying to Spencer a few tables away.
“If you don’t mind, I’d, uh, I’d rather not talk about her,” Spencer stuttered.
“Might as well get it out in the open, right? That’s why we’re here.”
Dawn and Spike pretended to talk, going through the motions of a quiet conversation, while they were listening intently to the other table.
“How long have you been married?” the assassin asked.
“Four years,” Spencer replied.
“When is she due to give birth?”
Spike raised an eyebrow.
“What are you thinking?” Dawn asked.
“I think the assassin is a sprite,” he replied. “One too weak to use magic.”
“Flight, empathic ability, nature magic - normally specific to the type of sprite,” she listed off her knowledge.
“No wings,” he told her, touching the tip of his ear, indicating he did not hear the frequency associated with fairy, pixie, and sprite wings.
“Nature magic is out,” she told him. “She’s known as Miss .45, guns are a little hard for magic folk to use.”
“Which leave empathic…”
“Let me see your ring,” Miss .45 said to Spencer. There was a moment of hesitation before he complied. “You know what that is? A noose. Only it doesn’t kill you all at once. It kills you slowly, day by day. You ever feel that way?”
“I-I feel that way all the time,” Spencer admitted.
“Take it off.”
“Why?”
“As a sign of your commitment. To me.”
There was a second before he handed it over.
“Eighteen karats?” she asked.
“Yes,” he replied.
“Eighteen karats times four years,” Miss .45 studied the ring. “This has definitely been worn for a while.” She slipped the ring into her purse. “But you have no tan line or sign of impression from wearing it for that time.”
“It was a good try, luv,” Spike told Dawn.
“Well, they gave him a new one, it would have never passed muster,” she told him as she sat back for her food to be placed in front of her.
A distinctive click reached their enhanced hearing.
Spike stopped the waiter. “Can we get the rest of the bottle?”
“Of course, sir.”
“Guns,” Dawn said once the waiter moved away. “I should have known.”
“She’s checking him for one now,” Spike told her in a whisper, like they were sharing a secret. “You may have saved his life.”
Spike and Dawn worked through their meal, keeping up their shy, awkward flirting. Miss .45 - Cat - had managed to out both J.J. and Rossi, forcing them to abandon their posts. Tara and Morgan were still safely concealed, watching the entire thing. They listened as Reid played the game, divulging the truth about his mother and how the team had finally nailed Cat.
“You’d be surprised how many killers do what they do because of their parents,” Reid told Cat.
Dawn snorted and smiled into her glass.
“Something funny, Bit?” Spike asked.
“Oh, please, the remaining knuckleheads of Aurelius are all parental issues,” she reminded him. “Hell add Darla and Connor into that.”
Spike’s eyebrow rose. “Care to state your case?”
“Darla was whored out by her father at fourteen. Became a vampire at twenty and continued to be whored out by the Master for two hundred years. Angelus…was a disappointment and a drunken tramp, he killed his family because his father believed he could be a good man. Drusilla spent her entire human life being condemned for her gifts, when she finally could have had peace, her new “daddy”…” Dawn hesitated over the bald words she could use. “He did what he did to her, broke her, for fun. And I don’t think I need to remind you of your own parental iss-”
“Point made,” he said. There was a dopey grin on his face, their façade still in place. But his eyes were shuttered.
“Hey,” she said softly and reached for his hand. “That’s not a crack at you. You know that. You’re a great parent. You have custody of how many kids? And you are still the world’s only babysitter that our older Slayers trust.” She squeezed his hand until he squeezed back and the dopey grin was real.
“Thank you.” He cleared his throat and shook his head. “Bombs - why the bombs?”
“Because they figured this was a setup,” she replied, referring to the fact that Cat had a partner with her, somewhere. And the partner had spent the time Cat was talking to Spencer, setting up the bombs along a gas main below the building. “We’ve got to end this,” Dawn told him, “before someone gets hurt.”
“But they need to find the bomber first,” he told her. “Doesn’t take much to set one of those things off now a days.”
Spencer managed to keep Cat at the table instead of letting her walk away.
“Here you are,” their waiter said looking pale and shaky. “A problem in the kitchen has required that we comp your meal. Please leave at your earliest convenience.” He moved on to the next table.
“Did you hear that?” Dawn asked.
“Sounds like we should finish our wine,” Spike poured the last into each of their glasses, leaving the bottle empty at the center of the table.
“Sounds delightful,” she replied and they clinked their full glasses. Spike sloshed some onto his sleeve.
They fussed over it a moment before he determined he should go rinse it in the men’s room.
Dawn shook her head and smiled after him like she was checking out his butt as he walked away. She got her first glimpse of Cat, short dark hair. He thin body wrapped in black. She sat across from Spencer, a gun in her hand concealed by the tablecloth and her napkin.
“Hey, you know what, baby?” Morgan’s voice became a little loud. “Let’s get out of here. I’m not really feeling this place.”
“Spike. Help the black couple that just stood up, they think they have the bomber,” she spoke quickly, not knowing where he was, or if he was too far away to hear her.
Dawn set down her wine as she heard Morgan declare the bomber was detained and her device deactivated. Dawn stood and grabbed the bottle of wine. She made like she was checking over the label. Out of the corner of her eye she was doing the math.
Cat went to stand, he gun aiming away from Spencer for just a split second. Dawn threw the bottle, beaning the pixie in the head. She went down like a ton of bricks.
“Nice throw, Bit,” Spike said his normal accent back as he made his way back to her.
“If she pointed the gun at Spencer again she was going to pull the trigger,” Dawn told him.
“Speaking of,” he muttered.
She turned to see Spencer walking towards her.
“What are you doing here?” Spencer demanded. “And what were you thinking?”
“That knocking her out was better than getting a hole in you,” she said.
“Doctor Summers,” Rossi said as he approached. “I had a feeling when I saw you in the parking lot…”
“You gave it away for me too,” she said. “We didn’t mean to crash the party, but we thought we were just here to catch an international assassin. Only to find one hell of a sting operation.” She turned to Spencer. “And what the hell were you thinking doubling down on her?”
“I knew what I was doing,” he said.
“Oh yeah,” she grabbed her clutch and pulled out his gun and department issued wedding band. “These would have gotten you killed if she hadn’t been playing for time.” She set them down on the table. “What do you think?” she asked Spike, gesturing to Cat. “Any reason she can’t go to prison?”
“Nah,” he replied, “she should be fine.”
“So glad you’re going to let us have custody of our assassin,” Rossi said.
“Ninety, ninety-five percent yours,” Dawn said. “But we don’t think there is any reason to claim that five percent. We’ll let our contacts know that the network is destroyed. And keep an eye out for someone trying to fill the void.”
“And retaliatory,” Spike added.
“Someone is going to earn their pay this year,” Dawn agreed.
“Doctor Summers,” Hotchner greeted her gruffly as he entered the scene and Cat was being arrested as she came out of her stupor.
“Agent Hotchner,” Dawn grinned. “We didn’t mean to step into your thing here, but the IC had interest in the network. Since it is dissolved, I believe your team has done the world a great favor.”
“Thank you,” he said. “And your friend?”
“William is a member of the IC. But we really must be going, the babysitter will be wanting to go home. I can come to your office with our reports to complete your file on Monday.”
Hotchner opened his mouth to reply.
“You!” Cat screeched as she was being pulled out of the restaurant.
“I’d shut up and plead guilty,” Spike said, “unless you want to become a prisoner of the Council.”
Cat glared but allowed herself to be led away.
Title: More Wine!
Author: hermione2be
Rating: PG/FR13/K+
Crossover: BtVS/ Criminal Minds
Disclaimer: I do not own any of BtVS/Angel or Criminal Minds people, places, or ideas. This fiction is done simply for pleasure and I receive no profit.
Summary: Dawn and Spike go on a mission, only to be spectators to the BAU.
Notes: Dawn of the IC Part 5 - Links Page
Seasons: Post-Series/Season 11 “Entropy”
Characters: Dawn, Spike, Rossi, J.J., Spencer, Morgan
Word Count: 2630
Dawn pulled her car to a stop and got out. Her companion followed.
“Why did you choose me for this?” she asked.
“Because you and I haven’t had dinner together in a while,” Spike responded. His brown hair was slicked back, his black slacks and blue sweater were posh. She wore a dark lavender, knee-length dress. Her dark hair was twisted up in an elegant bun. She held a medium clutch.
They had hurried to the restaurant when they had gotten word the meet location had changed. A collection of half-demon hitmen were dropping dead. Two had been killed a month or so before, the other months ago. That left two, the most dangerous. A meet had been planned then moved.
“Why move here?” she asked.
“Smaller restaurant,” he commented.
Dawn paused as she caught sight of someone familiar.
“Dave?” she greeted.
His eyes widened and he made a small gesture. “You must have me mistaken for someone else.”
“I’m so sorry,” she said, feigning embarrassment as he continued past.
Spike took her arm and set it on his. “Done embarrassing yourself?”
“Not yet, I need you to listen for something nearby, doesn’t belong,” she whispered.
“Got it,” he said after a moment.
“FBI?” she asked.
“Sounds like.”
“Looks like they may be here for the same reason we are,” Dawn told him.
“Does that change anything?”
“Won’t know until we have all the players in place. But we should be able to do this without outing our world.”
Dawn let Spike pull open the door. She immediately saw J.J. at the bar. She discretely scanned the rest of the area spotting Morgan and Tara in one corner and Rossi in another.
“I’m going to need you to tap into your inner William,” she whispered. She saw Spencer at a table by himself. “We desperately need alcohol to get through this third date.”
Spike nodded and slowly his demeanor changed. He went from very confident and in charge to anxious. He leaned over to the host and said in a hushed tone, his accent cultured, “Please tell me it’s going to be ten minutes or so, I really need a drink.” He awkwardly handed over a bill.
The host nodded. “It will be a few minutes, you can wait at the bar and I will let you know when your table is ready.”
“Thank you,” Spike said, relieved. He sat next to J.J. while Dawn sat on the other side of him.
Dawn ran her fingers over her right ear, enacting a small, hearing enhancement spell. It took several minutes before Spike was able to construct a minor accident to draw J.J.’s attention naturally and allow them a moment of conversation. He spilled J.J.’s drink on the bar. The three of them rushed to stop the liquid from reaching them.
“What are you doing here?” J.J. asked as though responding to Spike’s rather panicked apologies.
“We had a lead on a hit-woman,” Dawn replied. “We came to flush her out. You’re here for the same reason?”
“Yeah, Spence is acting as her client.”
“Okay.” She acknowledged. “He wants someone killed?”
“Wife,” J.J. told them.
“Is he armed?”
“Yes.”
Spike shook his head. “That’s not good.”
“Sir,” the host said forcefully. “Your table is ready.”
“Of course. Please, um, add this lady’s tab to my bill for the evening.”
“That’s not necessary,” J.J. said.
“It’s the least I-I can do, miss,” he said. “I’m so sorry.”
Dawn followed next to Spike. They were going to pass right by Spencer. “My turn to be a klutz,” she whispered so Spike would know what she was doing.
She teetering a moment on her high heel and fell right into Spencer’s lap, racking her hip on the table and rattling the table’s contents.
“Oh, my God,” she screeched slightly in embarrassment, her entire face heating as she tried to keep from flashing the room. She felt Spencer’s gun tucked in his pants. She reached for his left hand, which had gone to the booth seat in surprise. The ring was soft and smooth. She fingered hers off her thumb and stole the one he wore, swapping them. The entire time apologizing and stuttering through embarrassed attempts to get up gracefully.
“I’m sorry,” she said softly, grabbing his gun with her clutch as Spike helped her to her feet. “I’m so sorry,” she said for their audience, touching her flushed cheeks.
“It-it’s okay,” Spencer managed. “There’s no harm done.”
“Unless she scared off our unsub,” Morgan muttered through the coms the team had in place.
Dawn kept her gaze on the table as she mumbled another embarrassed apology. Spike steered her to a table not far away where she would be able to listen, and he would be able to see and listen to the table. She fiddled with her clutch, stowing the gun and too nice gold band she had taken from Spencer.
Then she looked at Spike and placed her hands over her face. “I forgot I could blush that hard.”
“You’re quite convincing,” he noted.
“Years of practice,” she muttered from behind her hands.
Spike gently took her hands down and appeared to be consoling her. “Some of that was real.”
She flushed slightly. “It’s not every day I fall into someone’s lap.”
He grinned, a soft, William-version of his leer. “I think it was who you fell into.”
“You read too much into things,” she told him. Taking a deep breath, she relaxed. Acting like she had just convinced herself the situation was not as embarrassing as she thought.
A waiter greeted them and read off the specials. They ordered food and Spike ordered them wine. They had just received their glasses when a woman sat down with Spencer. To anyone else it sounded like an awkward blind date, which was probably the point.
Spike and Dawn kept up a conversation as their food came. Both of them cringed internally as they listened to the conversation Spencer was having with the assassin.
“Does he really have three PhDs?” Spike asked before taking a sip of his wine.
“Yeah, they keep as close to the truth as possible to make the lies easier to remember,” she explained with a cute grin. Then she touched his hand. “It was always your downfall when you were evil. You tried to go too big.”
There was a moment where his cover as William and his indignation as Spike warred with him. Finally he muttered, “Shut up, Bit.”
She withdrew her hand and laughed. “Good wine.” She picked up her glass, it tipping precariously before she had a firm grip. She flushed.
“Tell me about your wife,” the assassin was saying to Spencer a few tables away.
“If you don’t mind, I’d, uh, I’d rather not talk about her,” Spencer stuttered.
“Might as well get it out in the open, right? That’s why we’re here.”
Dawn and Spike pretended to talk, going through the motions of a quiet conversation, while they were listening intently to the other table.
“How long have you been married?” the assassin asked.
“Four years,” Spencer replied.
“When is she due to give birth?”
Spike raised an eyebrow.
“What are you thinking?” Dawn asked.
“I think the assassin is a sprite,” he replied. “One too weak to use magic.”
“Flight, empathic ability, nature magic - normally specific to the type of sprite,” she listed off her knowledge.
“No wings,” he told her, touching the tip of his ear, indicating he did not hear the frequency associated with fairy, pixie, and sprite wings.
“Nature magic is out,” she told him. “She’s known as Miss .45, guns are a little hard for magic folk to use.”
“Which leave empathic…”
“Let me see your ring,” Miss .45 said to Spencer. There was a moment of hesitation before he complied. “You know what that is? A noose. Only it doesn’t kill you all at once. It kills you slowly, day by day. You ever feel that way?”
“I-I feel that way all the time,” Spencer admitted.
“Take it off.”
“Why?”
“As a sign of your commitment. To me.”
There was a second before he handed it over.
“Eighteen karats?” she asked.
“Yes,” he replied.
“Eighteen karats times four years,” Miss .45 studied the ring. “This has definitely been worn for a while.” She slipped the ring into her purse. “But you have no tan line or sign of impression from wearing it for that time.”
“It was a good try, luv,” Spike told Dawn.
“Well, they gave him a new one, it would have never passed muster,” she told him as she sat back for her food to be placed in front of her.
A distinctive click reached their enhanced hearing.
Spike stopped the waiter. “Can we get the rest of the bottle?”
“Of course, sir.”
“Guns,” Dawn said once the waiter moved away. “I should have known.”
“She’s checking him for one now,” Spike told her in a whisper, like they were sharing a secret. “You may have saved his life.”
Spike and Dawn worked through their meal, keeping up their shy, awkward flirting. Miss .45 - Cat - had managed to out both J.J. and Rossi, forcing them to abandon their posts. Tara and Morgan were still safely concealed, watching the entire thing. They listened as Reid played the game, divulging the truth about his mother and how the team had finally nailed Cat.
“You’d be surprised how many killers do what they do because of their parents,” Reid told Cat.
Dawn snorted and smiled into her glass.
“Something funny, Bit?” Spike asked.
“Oh, please, the remaining knuckleheads of Aurelius are all parental issues,” she reminded him. “Hell add Darla and Connor into that.”
Spike’s eyebrow rose. “Care to state your case?”
“Darla was whored out by her father at fourteen. Became a vampire at twenty and continued to be whored out by the Master for two hundred years. Angelus…was a disappointment and a drunken tramp, he killed his family because his father believed he could be a good man. Drusilla spent her entire human life being condemned for her gifts, when she finally could have had peace, her new “daddy”…” Dawn hesitated over the bald words she could use. “He did what he did to her, broke her, for fun. And I don’t think I need to remind you of your own parental iss-”
“Point made,” he said. There was a dopey grin on his face, their façade still in place. But his eyes were shuttered.
“Hey,” she said softly and reached for his hand. “That’s not a crack at you. You know that. You’re a great parent. You have custody of how many kids? And you are still the world’s only babysitter that our older Slayers trust.” She squeezed his hand until he squeezed back and the dopey grin was real.
“Thank you.” He cleared his throat and shook his head. “Bombs - why the bombs?”
“Because they figured this was a setup,” she replied, referring to the fact that Cat had a partner with her, somewhere. And the partner had spent the time Cat was talking to Spencer, setting up the bombs along a gas main below the building. “We’ve got to end this,” Dawn told him, “before someone gets hurt.”
“But they need to find the bomber first,” he told her. “Doesn’t take much to set one of those things off now a days.”
Spencer managed to keep Cat at the table instead of letting her walk away.
“Here you are,” their waiter said looking pale and shaky. “A problem in the kitchen has required that we comp your meal. Please leave at your earliest convenience.” He moved on to the next table.
“Did you hear that?” Dawn asked.
“Sounds like we should finish our wine,” Spike poured the last into each of their glasses, leaving the bottle empty at the center of the table.
“Sounds delightful,” she replied and they clinked their full glasses. Spike sloshed some onto his sleeve.
They fussed over it a moment before he determined he should go rinse it in the men’s room.
Dawn shook her head and smiled after him like she was checking out his butt as he walked away. She got her first glimpse of Cat, short dark hair. He thin body wrapped in black. She sat across from Spencer, a gun in her hand concealed by the tablecloth and her napkin.
“Hey, you know what, baby?” Morgan’s voice became a little loud. “Let’s get out of here. I’m not really feeling this place.”
“Spike. Help the black couple that just stood up, they think they have the bomber,” she spoke quickly, not knowing where he was, or if he was too far away to hear her.
Dawn set down her wine as she heard Morgan declare the bomber was detained and her device deactivated. Dawn stood and grabbed the bottle of wine. She made like she was checking over the label. Out of the corner of her eye she was doing the math.
Cat went to stand, he gun aiming away from Spencer for just a split second. Dawn threw the bottle, beaning the pixie in the head. She went down like a ton of bricks.
“Nice throw, Bit,” Spike said his normal accent back as he made his way back to her.
“If she pointed the gun at Spencer again she was going to pull the trigger,” Dawn told him.
“Speaking of,” he muttered.
She turned to see Spencer walking towards her.
“What are you doing here?” Spencer demanded. “And what were you thinking?”
“That knocking her out was better than getting a hole in you,” she said.
“Doctor Summers,” Rossi said as he approached. “I had a feeling when I saw you in the parking lot…”
“You gave it away for me too,” she said. “We didn’t mean to crash the party, but we thought we were just here to catch an international assassin. Only to find one hell of a sting operation.” She turned to Spencer. “And what the hell were you thinking doubling down on her?”
“I knew what I was doing,” he said.
“Oh yeah,” she grabbed her clutch and pulled out his gun and department issued wedding band. “These would have gotten you killed if she hadn’t been playing for time.” She set them down on the table. “What do you think?” she asked Spike, gesturing to Cat. “Any reason she can’t go to prison?”
“Nah,” he replied, “she should be fine.”
“So glad you’re going to let us have custody of our assassin,” Rossi said.
“Ninety, ninety-five percent yours,” Dawn said. “But we don’t think there is any reason to claim that five percent. We’ll let our contacts know that the network is destroyed. And keep an eye out for someone trying to fill the void.”
“And retaliatory,” Spike added.
“Someone is going to earn their pay this year,” Dawn agreed.
“Doctor Summers,” Hotchner greeted her gruffly as he entered the scene and Cat was being arrested as she came out of her stupor.
“Agent Hotchner,” Dawn grinned. “We didn’t mean to step into your thing here, but the IC had interest in the network. Since it is dissolved, I believe your team has done the world a great favor.”
“Thank you,” he said. “And your friend?”
“William is a member of the IC. But we really must be going, the babysitter will be wanting to go home. I can come to your office with our reports to complete your file on Monday.”
Hotchner opened his mouth to reply.
“You!” Cat screeched as she was being pulled out of the restaurant.
“I’d shut up and plead guilty,” Spike said, “unless you want to become a prisoner of the Council.”
Cat glared but allowed herself to be led away.