84 : Exposure

[followedhimdown]

It was all well and good discussing things with her boyfriend fiancee partner in the privacy of their his bedroom. But when it came time to own up and face the consequences of their whirlwind weekend, Stark found herself hesitating. There was a lump surprisingly wedged in her throat as she dressed, packed and made the drive she'd made a thousand

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[didntdropit]

He hadn't found Stark, she just seemed to up and disappear. That made him worry a bit enough that he went to McCall's office and that was when he heard Stark. Her asking to be fired made him frown, had he really scared her off that badly? Maybe he should have denied the proposal.

He slipped into the office then and looked at Stark.

"If you fire her, you have to fire me too. That or I quit."

[followedhimdown]

The Assistant Director looked past the brunette agent standing on the other side of his desk at her partner, shifted his jaw, and then looked back to the petite woman. "Either of you want to tell me what's going on here?" he asked.

Stark put her hands on her hips. "I'm about to confess to breaking a cardinal rule of the Bureau's personal conduct policy, at which point you'd have to fire me anyway, so let's just save myself and my partner the embarrassment, fire me now and nobody has to know about it."

McCall swiveled in his chair looking at her like she'd grown a second head. "What did you do?" he asked. "Hold up a 7-Eleven for a pack of cigarettes and some beer? What in God's name could you do in twenty-four hours?"

She exhaled. "...I'm engaged."

"Congratulations. I still fail to see the problem here..."

She glanced over her shoulder at her partner. "You want to tell him or should I?"

[didntdropit]

"She's engaged to me." He leaned in the doorway and looked at Stark then looking passed her to Vince. He just waited for the axe to fall.

[followedhimdown]

McCall took his eyes off of Stark, whose entire face fell, to look at him in a cold impassive way. "Get in here and close the door," he said calmly, waiting until they were definitely alone before he spoke again. "How long has this been going on between you two?"

Stark forgot that McCall was new to the D.C. office and thus didn't know their shared history, so to him this was all weird. She struggled for a moment before she said, "Five days."

"What?" he asked. "You're kidding, right?"