Pepper

Intensely watching the movie she had picked Adison new they both had seen it a million times but they were creatures of habit and always came back to the movies they loved. Enjoying the pizza Adison was just quiet till Kirk said something about the topping that fell on the floor. Looking to Kirk, and than to the floor, than to Kirk again she was still quiet as he pushed the rest of her pizza crust in her mouth.

   "Are you making a mess again? Dress you up but can't take you out can I?"

Scooting off of the couch Aidson gets down on her hands and knees looking for what as dropped. Bumping into Kirk's legs several times she trys to push them out of the way. Finally finding it she holds it up in the air before sitting up and leaning her head on Kirk's knee.

   "I found it...it was a pepper. By the way...you have a lot of crap under your couch. Do you ever clean under there?"

Watching the whole thing unfold Nate could hardly believe what was going on. Justin was being more pushy than normal, he was agitating Garret, did he have a death wish of his own. He didn't understand why he was doing this. Was it because of everything that was going on in his life?

Hearing about Garret's past Nate stood a little taller. He couldn't believe it...he new Garret had joined the Agency young but to be sold that was a completely different story. He couldn't imagen how he must feel.  Hearing Reese order Nate moved quickly.

   "Garret let go of Justin."

Nate came over to bother of them and stood infront of Garret so he could see him. He hoped he could get through to him at this moment. 

   "Come on Garret...we are going home...let him go, he's not worth going to jail for. Let him go."

Sold

Kirk lifted an eyebrow at Adison’s suggestion. He’d kind of wanted to just go home and hit the hay early, but… How could he say no to eyes like that? And yet, how could he say yes and risk his own awkward self getting in the way? It just seemed to be harder and harder lately to keep his thoughts about Adison to himself, and she wasn’t helping any. 

“That sounds like a great idea.” Really? He inwardly rolled his eyes at himself. “I get to pick the pizza toppings…and you pick the movie.” It was usually a tradeoff one way or the other, and since both had similar tastes in food and movies, they both always ended up perfectly content…


…It was dark in the apartment, except for the television that played the action movie. The volume was turned up nice and loud, even putting Kirk on edge a few times, despite the fact that they’d both seen this one multiple times.

Sitting on one end of the couch, with Adison on the other and the pizza box between them, he took another bite of his slice, savoring the greasy cheese. Until a topping fell on the floor. But he couldn’t see it in the dark. “Oops…” He glanced over at her. “You didn’t see that, did you?”


Garret slid off the bed and stood as Nate came in, accepting one of the mugs of coffee. That actually sounded good this morning. “I’m okay,” he responded with a shrug. “On the mend, I think.” What was going to happen when he was completely over the flu? He didn’t want to admit it, but the thought of going back to the room at the Elite wasn’t all that appealing. It was what it was, though.

Sighing a little, he took a sip of coffee, then nodded to the door. “I’ll come with you. Ready when you are…”


...Garret was not happy to have been brought into the interrogation room. Again. He'd hardly been in the office ten minutes when Reese had told him to get in here for a new session. He was told it was just routine. Protocol. His evaluations weren't finished yet. And he wondered if they ever would be. He was too tired to fight it though. Remnants of the flu were still hanging on, and he didn't have enough energy to argue with Reese about this apparent necessity.

What he didn't know was that he was being watched again from the next room over. Reese wanted to see if there was any change, and he'd also asked Nate to join him so they both could observe.

Justin came into the room and shut the door, taking up his usual seat and setting his backpack down after retrieving his usual notepad. He wasn't happy to be in here. He'd just spent twenty minutes arguing with Reese about him quitting his work around here, but had been pressured into one more session with Garret. He'd told Reese this was it, though. "Garret."

Garret quirked an eyebrow. Something felt off. "Justin. Back for more pointless conversation, I see."

"Nope." Justin sighed. "Never pointless. But don't worry. You won't have to deal with me anymore after this."

Garret cocked his head. "Reese lightening up?"

"No. He'll probably have someone like Hope continue the evaluations. I'm pulling out." He jotted down a note. "So, how-"

"Wait. Pulling out? This have to do with your girlfriend's sister?"

Justin bristled. "Let's talk about you, not me."

Garret shook his head and frowned. "They got to you, didn't they? You're quitting because of the Agency."

"Garret, enough," Justin warned sternly. "I'm not here for your opinion on my personal matters."

"It's not personal." Garret sat back and scoffed. "It has to do with everything and everyone. You just let the Agency win, and you think they're gonna quit now? You think walking away is gonna take that target off your back?"

"And why in the world would you even care? Hmm?"

Garret shrugged. "I guess I really don't. I just figured you wrong, that's all."

"What do you mean?"

"I thought you had more guts."

"Guts has nothing to do with it!" Justin's hand came slamming down on the table as his emotions erupted. He felt guilty enough the way it was without Garret's jabs. "I'm protecting those I love!"

Garret rocked back in his chair a little, not having expected the outburst. "You're not protecting anybody by letting the Agency win. They'll attack you if they want to, whether you're still here or not. You got involved, and that-"

"Enough!" Justin raised his voice. "You, of all people, have no right to judge how I handle the Agency."

Garret's eyebrows came down as his eyes narrowed. "Are you comparing your story to mine, or are you insinuating I'm still involved with the Agency?"

Justin tossed his pen aside, tired of this worthless banter. "Take it however you want. I'm tired of trying to help someone who doesn't want to be helped. Since you got here, all you do is insist on throwing your weight around, getting your own way, and thinking you're smarter than everyone else. Reese thinks I can get through to you, but he's never been more wrong."

As Justin's temper rose, Garret's automatically matched. "Then why am I wasting my time sitting here? Go. Quit. Live in blissful ignorance until the Agency attacks again. Then you'll just be right back here, but instead of trying to help me, you'll be asking for my help."

"Why should I ask you for help?" Justin grabbed his notepad and pen and stuffed them back in his bag. "You're nothing but a walking time bomb with the insides of a coward."

Garret stood quickly, the chair scraping the floor. His expression had turned into a glare. "You better have an awfully good reason for calling me a coward."

Too worked up to be sensible, Justin stood to face him, equally angry. "What? Like you don't already know? How many times have we sat here with you refusing to talk to me, huh? You're so scared of the past, you can't even look at it, let alone face it and deal with it."

"My past is none of your business! I'm here because of the present and that's all I care about!"

"And that's your problem!" Justin threw his hands up in the air. "You walk around all high and mighty because you can tear a guy's head off in the blink of an eye. But in reality, you're not even in control of your own life. You may have walked away from the Agency. You may have decided to defect. You may have taken your own path and defied the system. Well, good for you." He clapped mockingly. "But all that isn't worth squat because in reality, you've got the biggest daddy issues of anyone I know, and you're too weak to admit it."

Garret's eyes darkened and he straightened, his hands becoming fists at his sides. "Don't go there." His voice had turned to ice.

"Why not?" Justin wasn't done yet. He'd never been able to figure out what Garret's real problem was about the past, but now he'd latched on to the fear in his eyes and wasn't going to let go. "Still scared, huh? You can't face some little issue in your past. What happened, huh? Your daddy yell too much at you when you were a kid? Was he Agency too? Maybe that's why you hate them so much."

"Shut up!" Garret barked. "You have no right."

"No right for what? Words getting to you, tough guy? Maybe it wasn't your daddy at all. Maybe it was your mommy. What's got you so scared, Garret? All I see is a coward who can't handle the truth."

"I'm not a coward!" Garret could feel his pulse racing and his head getting hot. Memories of that fateful day as a child flashed through his mind, bringing on the same severe pain he'd tried to get rid of all these years.

"Then prove it!" Justin shouted. "Or are you even man enough?"

“You will never understand the things I’ve been through,” Garret hissed. “Just because I don’t want to tell an arrogant jerk like you about it does not make me a coward!”

“So prove it!” Justin repeated. “Go on! Tell me what poor little Garret must have gone through to make him such a mean, nasty assassin.”

“No!”

“See?! You can’t handle it!”

“I can handle anything I want!”

“Can’t prove it by me!”

“I don’t have to!”

“You won’t ever make it out here in this world until you man up and face your past.” Justin’s face was just inches from Garret’s. “Until then, I have to assume you were just a spoiled brat who didn’t get his way and so he found the Agency where he could act out.”


On the other side of the two-way mirror, Reese gave Nate a leery glance. What was Justin doing? This was not his normal style, and he looked just about as worked up as Garret. Should they interfere or just let it go? He opted to let it go for now. He trusted Justin.


Garret didn’t know if his head hurt because he’d been sick or because his blood pressure was just that high. “I didn’t choose the Agency!”

“You said you weren’t born there! Was that a lie or was this a lie? Make up your mind, Garret!”

“I didn’t choose them!” Garret repeated loudly.

“Then how did you end up there?! Fairies didn’t drop you off!”

“My parents sold me to the Agency!” As soon as the shouted words left Garret’s mouth, the very truth of them hit him harder than they ever had before. Saying it out loud…actually uttering those words…it was very different than simply thinking them over in his mind. And it hurt. It hurt more deeply than the matter ever had before. And that hurt quickly fanned the flames of his anger. “I was five years old!” He grabbed Justin’s collar and slammed him back up against the wall. “I wasn’t supposed to remember!” he yelled. Tears glistened in his reddening eyes, but he had too much determination to let them actually fall. “But I do! I remember every single moment of my mother begging those men for the money and my father gladly walking away. The abandoned me because the price was right!”

Justin tried to pull Garret’s hands away, but it was no use. Had he been using his head, he never would have taunted him like he had. He’d known there was pain there, but he’d poked and prodded anyway, and now the truth was out – and it was harsher than Justin had imagined. But he was still upset. “Let me go,” he ordered. “Just because your parents did that does not give you the right to shove me around now!”


Reese, though shocked by what he’d just learned, did not like the look in Garret’s eye. This had gone too far, and it was obvious that Justin was not in control of the situation. “Let’s go,” he told Nate with just a bit of fear. “Get Justin out of there before Garret kills him.”


“You may not be responsible for what happened,” Garret hissed, shifting so his forearm now pressed into Justin’s throat to cut his air off. “But you like causing just as much damage as my parents do, and for that, you deserve what you get.”

Good Morning

Coming down the hall with two cups of coffee in two travel mugs Nate smiled seeing Garret awake. He wasn't sure if he was coming with him or not, but he hoped so. He new that Laura would be ok if he was only gone a little while but it would make him feel better. Not to mention Reese would be happy knowing that Garret was in fact still around and hadn't flown the coop.

   "Good Morning! Got some coffee for you if you are going to head into the office with me. I wont be there long only a few hours. How are you feeling this morning?"

Giving a thoughtful sign Adison nodded her head. She remembered going over Gunner's folder with Kirk. Everything he said was true about him. She wished there was another way though because it did seem like he was a good Agent to have, but at the moment as Kirk had said Gunner was a lose cannon and that just wasn't safe. 

   "I can understand why they don't want him there anymore. I know Reese wont be happy but he cant deny Gunner is a liability and if someone gets hurt because he goes off...that wont be good."

Adison could see how tired Kirk was, or at least tired of work in his eyes. Honestly today hadn't been the best day for her. Nothing horrible went wrong but she just couldn't get her mind to focus on what needed to be done. Maybe it was because Kirk wasn't around but mentally she felt tired.

   "Sounds like a work date to me. How about pizza and a movie tonight?"

Tiger

Kirk sat back in his chair while his fingers fiddled with his water glass. "I hadn't thought about that building. Good idea. I definitely want to check it out. I really think the Elite can improve with workflow if they had a better set up. Different office spaces... open area kind of like what we're doing instead of cubicles. Most of them are empty anyway since they downsized. They really were quite big with a far reach a few years ago. Now though... oh well. At least they're still fighting to survive."

He thought for a moment about her original question. "The agent they want to get rid of is Brent. Gunner. He's one loose canon. That was his file we went through that talked about him getting into all that trouble trying to find his parents' killers when there's probably no killers at all." He rolled his eyes. "Good agent. Lacks the sense to follow rules though. There's just no denying his history and the risks he's taken. He's seen multiple counselors but can't seem to let go of phantom bad guys. Not saying he's crazy but...I'm not sure he's got quite a full set of marbles either. I'm not sure I'd boot him off the team but... the board wants to flex their muscles, so they figure the best way to do that is force the Elite's hand in some way. In this case, they chose to target an agent. If Reese refuses, the Elite will go down. He won't have a choice, and neither will Gunner."

Kirk didn't like handling things that way. If Gunner really was a problem, he'd prefer to help fix that problem rather than just eliminating him altogether. But the board wasn't going to budge. "Anyway..." He sighed. "To be honest, I really don't want to work anymore tonight. So...we can plan tomorrow night if you want?"


Justin just nodded, and let Beth start the movie again. He really didn't want to talk about it any more right now. What was done was done, they were both upset, and both needed to just rest tonight. Tomorrow he'd go in to the Elite to see Reese, enforce his decision to be done there, and then he'd have to talk to Beth once the whole shock of everything had worn off. Only then would she see that joining the Elite was not the answer. 

Settling down on the couch, he kept his arm around her for the rest of the movie. This was just a bad day. It would all pass. Eventually. It had to. 


Laura nodded her agreement with Nate's observations. "He's so different with Maggie. I would never guess he was anything but gentle and kind." She thought for a moment. "Then when he gets upset or scared... I don't know. It feels like having a pet tiger. As nice as that cat can be, it's still wild and you just can't ever trust it a hundred percent. I want to trust Garret...and I don't think he'd hurt any of us on purpose. But he just has this look in his eye every once in a while that's like this little reminder to tread lightly." 

She nuzzled in a little closer to get warm. "I'm not scared of him. I just want what's best for everybody. But I agree... I know there's hope. No one is a lost cause. Not even him..." 


...Morning. By the time Garret heard stirring upstairs, he'd already been awake, showered and dressed for an hour, and was now sitting on his bed with the room's door open. He could feel his body still fighting to get well, but there was more improvement today. He really didn't want to go in to the Elite with Nate. But he also knew without anyone saying so, that since Nate had to leave, it would be best that he go too. And after last night...maybe there was a part of him that didn't want to jeopardize whatever it was he'd gained. He didn't even know what it was. But it was something that had felt...good. As long as he could return with Nate later, he'd go to appease him, and probably Reese, whom he was sure did not like this arrangement at all, even if Nate said he was fine with it. 

Jefferson

   "I dont think Reese will be happy with Agent being taken off the field. I feel like that's going to be the biggest challenge at the moment. Who and why do they want that?"

Adsion grinned leaving the gummy worm for now and coming back to work at hand. Her mind worked around everything he said and started to process and come up with plans. Moving her noodles around on her plate she puts her fork down. She'd have to take the rest of the meal home she was just to full at the moment.

   "Files, I love going through files. You know me...its interesting to pick them apart. I think we should skip the all nighter though. I dont think my brain can handle another one of those."

As the waiter came over Adison asked for a cup of coffee as she smiled and waited for him to leave again. Looking back to Kirk she thought for a moment before sitting a little straighter remembering something. 

   "I'm not sure what kind of new place for the Elite you are looking for but there is that building over on Jefferson that's for rent. It's big enough, I'm not sure about the inside though. Might be worth checking out."

As Justin sits down again Beth just leans into him burying her face into his chest. She couldn't help the few more tears than ran down her cheek. Everything was so messed up right now, she didn't know what to feel and it all seemed to just clash together. 

   "Ok, I'm sorry I upset you. We can talk about it another time."

Leaning back a little she did her best to try and smile up at Justin. She hadn't meant to upset him she really hadnt and felt bad she did. Maybe everything was still to fresh and if they talked about it another day it would be better.

   "Lets finish the movie."

Putting his arms around Laura Nate just laid there for a long moment quiet. Tonight really had been different with Garret. It was a good different though he new that. But it was like his walls were slowly coming down or at least cracking. He was please with the progress, and happy that things hadn't backfired on him. From day one there had just been something about Garret he could tell was good.

   "I'm not one hundred percent sure about his past myself. I know he has been with the Agency young, much younger than Carson, or Alec. Whatever happened though it must have been hard. To grow up like that. Its all he knows, and how he thinks the world works. It's really sad when you think about it. I wish there was a way to give him his childhood back."

Garret's past was very clouded and Nate wondered if he was going to eventually have to work through that before moving on. His guess was yes, but he didn't know when Garret would have too. He felt bad but he was seeing progress and he liked what he said. At least they were going in the right direction.

   "Maggie sure does have that affect on him. I think thats one reason Garret is progressing the way he is. When he talks to her, helps her...I can just see a totally different guy. Thats why I can't give up. There is hope for him, I know there is."

Off the field

It took Justin several minutes to regain control, still alone in the kitchen. Today was just a bad day and it was almost over. Tomorrow would be better. This chapter in his life was done and it was time to move on. Deep down though...he didn't know how he was going to recover from this. Grace's kidnapping. Sarah's death. If he hadn't gotten involved with the Elite in the first place, those never would have happened. He'd been arrogant to never think those around him might be touched by the Agency's wrath. He'd been foolish to think he'd be exempt just because he wasn't on board full-time. And he'd found out the hard way that even the smallest involvement could result in torment. 

Taking another deep breath, Justin finally moved from the counter. The tears were back down at a safe distance, and his anger was subsiding. As he returned to the living room and saw Beth, a new wave of guilt was added on top of everything else. He was a horrible person. 

Coming back to the couch, he eased down next to her, and pulled her into a hug, just holding her close for a few quiet moments. "I'm sorry," he apologized gently. "I didn't meant to upset you. We'll talk about this another day, okay?" He kissed the top of her head. "You wanna finish the movie or just sit here?" He'd let her pick. She was priority right now. 


"Oh, not another gummy worm." Kirk gave her foot a light kick in return. "Took me forever to get that out of the carpet. I even almost cussed... almost." He grinned as he took another bite of steak. It was too bad this had to be a working dinner. They were a great team, but they always focused on work. Even if they goofed off, it never lasted long - the subject matter always came back around to work...as it should. He couldn't let his mind run away with itself or get distracted. Their jobs were their priorities, and besides, that's what they both had always wanted. Right? 

Had he just been staring at her again? He dropped his gaze and finished off his french fries. "Okay. So, remember all those files I had before?" He quickly moved back into work mode. "Multiply that by about ten and that's what I've got to work with now. What I wanna do is come up with at least three different plans of attack that I think would work, then give Reese those options. That way I'm not just bulldozing him into the ground. He's still going to be in charge...ish. I'll just be making sure we keep heading in a direction that the board will be satisfied with. So that's where I'll need your brain And..." He hesitated. "There's one agent they want off the field, and I'm going to have to come up with a good way to tell Reese that."


Garret lay in bed, but was far from sleep, even though he'd used the excuse of being tired to call it in before the rest of the family. It wasn't that he hadn't enjoyed the ice cream and game...there was a part of it that had struck a strange kind of fun inside of him. It was new. Different. But it felt just a little dangerous, too...because a wall or two had been forced to come down. And he wasn't sure if he really wanted that to happen or not. What was happening to him? 

Upstairs, Laura brushed out her hair before crawling into bed next to Nate and cuddling up to him to lay her head on his chest. She sighed with content and draped her arm around him to give him a little hug. "I think tonight went well," she mused quietly. "Garret seemed...almost human there a time or two." She paused as her mind was hard at work. "I know it's not my place and he'll never talk about it...but I can't help my curiosity about his past. What he's been through. Why he was at the Agency in the first place. The kind of soldier they were trying to make him into. He's so tough and hard...but sometimes I look at him and all I see is a little boy screaming to get out. He shuts down so quickly though." She shrugged. "He's too smart to manipulate... I can almost literally see the wheels turning sometimes. But I know he has a heart in there somewhere because of how Maggie can bring him out from behind his walls. Surely there's hope for him."