Numb3rs fic: "In not knowing" (sequel to "yoke and cross")
Title: In Not Knowing.
Author: Keenir.
Universe: the Switch verse: ( In not knowing & Yoke and cross)
Pairing: Nikki/Colby, possible Amita/Liz, Don, David, Megan.
Summary: Nikki has faith that Colby is alive, while the team puzzles over why Agent Warner was spying for China.
This fic was originally written for the Angst vs Schmoop Challenge at numb3rswriteoff…before it got away from the plot.
Warnings: AU of ‘The Janus List.’ (two divergences, though a detailed examination of the timeline might reveal a link between the two events - so, two for now)
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1,221
Spoilers: Janus List, Trust Metric, Hydra.
Disclaimer: All canon characters are the property of CBS, Heuton & Falacci. All original characters are mine. The news clips are from CNN articles.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
She and David had cornered her on the spiral staircase.
’Welcome to the Janus List. The following people have been coopted. If all are exposed, the infrastructure of two intelligence networks will collapse,’ Nikki remembered hearing Ashby’s recorded voice saying less than half an hour ago; still couldn’t believe one of the names provided: ’United States FBI Agent Elizabeth Warner.’
Right now, though, Nikki was cuffing Liz, bringing those hands off her head to behind her ass. “Why’d you do it?” Nikki wanted to know. When Liz offered not even a sigh or eye-roll, Nikki told her, “I don’t get you - you’ve got a kid.”
“Then you’ve got your reason,” was all Liz would say, staying hush the whole way to prison.
.**.
“I don’t care what she says,” Don told them in the conference room, “you dig as deep as you need.”
“Don -” Megan started to say.
“No. If Liz doesn’t want to tell us why she turned coat, we’re going to find out.” Looking at his team - or what was left of it - “Anybody got a problem with that, now’s the time to say so.”
“Nope,” Nikki said. “Bring out the shovels.”
“Count me in,” David said.
Nikki couldn’t picture what David was going through, betrayed by the partner whose hands he placed his life on a daily basis - she’d known some slippery and morally grey cops in her time, but what Liz’s done, that’s a whole ‘nother ballgame.
“I’m in,” Megan said, sounding to Nikki like she was doing this to help keep the group together, avoid splintering them further - and to be on the inside of the tent, not outside it all.
Later that night, Nikki caught up to David in the coffee room. “The hell of it, eh?” having heard it from Colby more than once.
“Yeah,” David said, sounding more tired than just the late hour accounted for; understandable. Then, “How’s your favorite Army boy?” picking a more cheerful topic.
“Afghanistan’s keeping Colby busy,” Nikki said. The high tide of stressing out about it had been a month ago, during Hanukkah; then, on the eighth day, she’d gotten five minutes of video conferencing to talk to him. There was enough to worry about right here, at work, to keep her from stressing about all the possible things that could be going wrong over there. Roadside bombs, mortar attacks, firefights… the list was something her nightmares utilized. “Rather not talk about it, okay?” hoping he’d let it drop. Colby’s okay. I know it.
One hand was holding his coffee, so David raised his other hand in a ‘sorry’ gesture.
She shook her head. “Sorry, David,” Nikki said. “Been a few weeks without any word from him.” Probably just on some assignment somewhere. Yeah. Even without seeking them out, she overheard far too many news reports for most folks’ peace of mind. And Colby had, a while ago, told her about how his buddy Dwayne had been killed less than a day after saving his life.
“Granger’s alive, Nikki,” David assured her. “It’d probably be easier for someone to kill Edgerton.”
Nikki smiled at the comparison. “You’re right. Edgerton’s got nine lives, but Colby’s -“ my Colby’s - “slick enough to only need one for the same result.” And that left something on the tip of her tongue…a thought, a glimmer of an idea. But it needs something. And I know just who to ask about it. “I’m going to go ask Charlie,” Nikki said. “See if any number-crunching can pull up something.”
“Go ahead,” David said, waving her off as friends do. “And let’s hope we do find something to exonerate Liz.” Under his breath, “Asby has to be wrong about this.
.**.
The blast comes a day after a Canadian soldier and an Afghan soldier were killed by a roadside bomb during a foot patrol about 25 kilometers, or more than 15 miles, southwest of the city of Kandahar, Canadian forces said.
.**.
“Sorry you just missed him,” Amita said, letting Nikki into the math department.
“No problem,” Nikki said. “It is kinda late.”
“I was grading papers,” Amita volunteered.
“Didn’t say anything,” Nikki said, holding up her hands like David’d done earlier.
“Sorry. I’ve - and Charlie’s - been trying to figure out why Liz would do what she did, ever since we heard. Is that why you’re here?”
“Yep.” Probably figured another possibility was a separate case - it happens, having multiple cases running at the same time.
“Follow me,” Amita said, leading her to Charlie’s office, turning off the screensaver and opening the program-writing screen. “Hasn’t she always taken short investigations, ones that don’t require undercover operations?”
Standing beside the desk, Nikki nodded. Doesn’t like triple-binds, or just has a limit to how many lies she can do at a time? “I asked her about it one time. She said she didn’t want to spend more time away from her kid than she had to.”
“Makes sense. She’s got family up in Portland, but other than that, she’s all her daughter’s got.”
Thirty seconds later, “How’re you holding up?” Nikki asked, seeing a deer-in-the-headlights look for only a second before Amita’s face smoothed back to her I’m-a-professor look.
“Me? I’m fine,” Amita said.
“When I questioned her in prison, I reminded her of that, actually,” Nikki said.
Amita blinked, reasoning that Nikki meant what they had been discussing before the ‘how are you holding up?’
Nikki was still talking: “And Liz told me ‘there’s an exception to everything.’”
Amita nodded. “That’s true in every field.”
Now Nikki nodded. “And that got me thinking… could we run a program to see if this is really an exception - or if there was anything to spark this exception?” and she could see the gears spinning in Amita’s head.
“We can,” Amita said, grinning as the program practically wrote itself in her head.
“With any luck, this’ll help prove her innocence.”
“She is innocent,” Amita said.
“You got faith, huh?” Nikki asked. “Yeah, I’m the same way about Colby - no matter what I hear or what happens, I know he’s okay. I have to know it.”
Amita was frozen, biting her own lip looking at Nikki.
“Trust me,” Nikki said, “your family can’t have half the objections mine have about Colby.” I had family back in Mountain Meadows, for one.
Amita was skeptical, but she accepted the statement in the spirit in which it was made.
.**.
"We tried to assist, to persuade -- and it yielded results. And I should tell you that we understood this after about four years of our presence there."
-Gen. Victor Yermakov, commander of the Soviet Union’s 40th Army, active in Afghanistan in the pre-Taliban era.
.**.
“Thanks for pulling me off that guy,” Nikki said to David as they took their drinks from the barrista and headed to the door before there was an incident.
“No problem. Just let me do the talking from now on?” he kidded with her.
“Sure thing, boss,”she replied, trying to put that teen annoyance out of her mind; to her eye, the kid’d tried to incite something in the Starbucks - Alan was a protester; this idiot’s just a quitter, afraid we might measure up to our forefathers in the other world wars.
When they sat down in the car, “I don’t even watch tv any more,” Nikki said.
“’Cause our job exposes us to all the same sort of people, right?” David asked.
“Yeah, that’s it,” Nikki said, a white lie.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`
The End
Author: Keenir.
Universe: the Switch verse: ( In not knowing & Yoke and cross)
Pairing: Nikki/Colby, possible Amita/Liz, Don, David, Megan.
Summary: Nikki has faith that Colby is alive, while the team puzzles over why Agent Warner was spying for China.
This fic was originally written for the Angst vs Schmoop Challenge at numb3rswriteoff…before it got away from the plot.
Warnings: AU of ‘The Janus List.’ (two divergences, though a detailed examination of the timeline might reveal a link between the two events - so, two for now)
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1,221
Spoilers: Janus List, Trust Metric, Hydra.
Disclaimer: All canon characters are the property of CBS, Heuton & Falacci. All original characters are mine. The news clips are from CNN articles.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
She and David had cornered her on the spiral staircase.
’Welcome to the Janus List. The following people have been coopted. If all are exposed, the infrastructure of two intelligence networks will collapse,’ Nikki remembered hearing Ashby’s recorded voice saying less than half an hour ago; still couldn’t believe one of the names provided: ’United States FBI Agent Elizabeth Warner.’
Right now, though, Nikki was cuffing Liz, bringing those hands off her head to behind her ass. “Why’d you do it?” Nikki wanted to know. When Liz offered not even a sigh or eye-roll, Nikki told her, “I don’t get you - you’ve got a kid.”
“Then you’ve got your reason,” was all Liz would say, staying hush the whole way to prison.
.**.
“I don’t care what she says,” Don told them in the conference room, “you dig as deep as you need.”
“Don -” Megan started to say.
“No. If Liz doesn’t want to tell us why she turned coat, we’re going to find out.” Looking at his team - or what was left of it - “Anybody got a problem with that, now’s the time to say so.”
“Nope,” Nikki said. “Bring out the shovels.”
“Count me in,” David said.
Nikki couldn’t picture what David was going through, betrayed by the partner whose hands he placed his life on a daily basis - she’d known some slippery and morally grey cops in her time, but what Liz’s done, that’s a whole ‘nother ballgame.
“I’m in,” Megan said, sounding to Nikki like she was doing this to help keep the group together, avoid splintering them further - and to be on the inside of the tent, not outside it all.
Later that night, Nikki caught up to David in the coffee room. “The hell of it, eh?” having heard it from Colby more than once.
“Yeah,” David said, sounding more tired than just the late hour accounted for; understandable. Then, “How’s your favorite Army boy?” picking a more cheerful topic.
“Afghanistan’s keeping Colby busy,” Nikki said. The high tide of stressing out about it had been a month ago, during Hanukkah; then, on the eighth day, she’d gotten five minutes of video conferencing to talk to him. There was enough to worry about right here, at work, to keep her from stressing about all the possible things that could be going wrong over there. Roadside bombs, mortar attacks, firefights… the list was something her nightmares utilized. “Rather not talk about it, okay?” hoping he’d let it drop. Colby’s okay. I know it.
One hand was holding his coffee, so David raised his other hand in a ‘sorry’ gesture.
She shook her head. “Sorry, David,” Nikki said. “Been a few weeks without any word from him.” Probably just on some assignment somewhere. Yeah. Even without seeking them out, she overheard far too many news reports for most folks’ peace of mind. And Colby had, a while ago, told her about how his buddy Dwayne had been killed less than a day after saving his life.
“Granger’s alive, Nikki,” David assured her. “It’d probably be easier for someone to kill Edgerton.”
Nikki smiled at the comparison. “You’re right. Edgerton’s got nine lives, but Colby’s -“ my Colby’s - “slick enough to only need one for the same result.” And that left something on the tip of her tongue…a thought, a glimmer of an idea. But it needs something. And I know just who to ask about it. “I’m going to go ask Charlie,” Nikki said. “See if any number-crunching can pull up something.”
“Go ahead,” David said, waving her off as friends do. “And let’s hope we do find something to exonerate Liz.” Under his breath, “Asby has to be wrong about this.
.**.
The blast comes a day after a Canadian soldier and an Afghan soldier were killed by a roadside bomb during a foot patrol about 25 kilometers, or more than 15 miles, southwest of the city of Kandahar, Canadian forces said.
.**.
“Sorry you just missed him,” Amita said, letting Nikki into the math department.
“No problem,” Nikki said. “It is kinda late.”
“I was grading papers,” Amita volunteered.
“Didn’t say anything,” Nikki said, holding up her hands like David’d done earlier.
“Sorry. I’ve - and Charlie’s - been trying to figure out why Liz would do what she did, ever since we heard. Is that why you’re here?”
“Yep.” Probably figured another possibility was a separate case - it happens, having multiple cases running at the same time.
“Follow me,” Amita said, leading her to Charlie’s office, turning off the screensaver and opening the program-writing screen. “Hasn’t she always taken short investigations, ones that don’t require undercover operations?”
Standing beside the desk, Nikki nodded. Doesn’t like triple-binds, or just has a limit to how many lies she can do at a time? “I asked her about it one time. She said she didn’t want to spend more time away from her kid than she had to.”
“Makes sense. She’s got family up in Portland, but other than that, she’s all her daughter’s got.”
Thirty seconds later, “How’re you holding up?” Nikki asked, seeing a deer-in-the-headlights look for only a second before Amita’s face smoothed back to her I’m-a-professor look.
“Me? I’m fine,” Amita said.
“When I questioned her in prison, I reminded her of that, actually,” Nikki said.
Amita blinked, reasoning that Nikki meant what they had been discussing before the ‘how are you holding up?’
Nikki was still talking: “And Liz told me ‘there’s an exception to everything.’”
Amita nodded. “That’s true in every field.”
Now Nikki nodded. “And that got me thinking… could we run a program to see if this is really an exception - or if there was anything to spark this exception?” and she could see the gears spinning in Amita’s head.
“We can,” Amita said, grinning as the program practically wrote itself in her head.
“With any luck, this’ll help prove her innocence.”
“She is innocent,” Amita said.
“You got faith, huh?” Nikki asked. “Yeah, I’m the same way about Colby - no matter what I hear or what happens, I know he’s okay. I have to know it.”
Amita was frozen, biting her own lip looking at Nikki.
“Trust me,” Nikki said, “your family can’t have half the objections mine have about Colby.” I had family back in Mountain Meadows, for one.
Amita was skeptical, but she accepted the statement in the spirit in which it was made.
.**.
"We tried to assist, to persuade -- and it yielded results. And I should tell you that we understood this after about four years of our presence there."
-Gen. Victor Yermakov, commander of the Soviet Union’s 40th Army, active in Afghanistan in the pre-Taliban era.
.**.
“Thanks for pulling me off that guy,” Nikki said to David as they took their drinks from the barrista and headed to the door before there was an incident.
“No problem. Just let me do the talking from now on?” he kidded with her.
“Sure thing, boss,”she replied, trying to put that teen annoyance out of her mind; to her eye, the kid’d tried to incite something in the Starbucks - Alan was a protester; this idiot’s just a quitter, afraid we might measure up to our forefathers in the other world wars.
When they sat down in the car, “I don’t even watch tv any more,” Nikki said.
“’Cause our job exposes us to all the same sort of people, right?” David asked.
“Yeah, that’s it,” Nikki said, a white lie.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`
The End