by Christina Simmons / Chrismasi@aol.com
"Oh, come on, kid... live a little!" Henrich West's eyes danced, winking at the frown on Amanda Fischer's face. "We've got the time... off-duty time..." And his grin widened slyly. "What d'you say, huh?"
"I say that if you call me 'kid' one more time, I'm having Jon distribute that 'black book' file off your computer." Brown eyes turned up at her fellow agent, smiling, the warning diffused by Manda's natural affability. "I appreciate the offer, West... but I don't think tonight's the best night." She grinned ruefully. "I have the proverbial headache."
"That's what they all say." And with the melodramatic sigh of one long-suffering, West rolled his eyes and strolled down the white-tiled hospital walkway, half-turning with a smirk, and an afterthought. "Don't wait up."
"Won't be a problem, West." Manda raised a hand, watching him go, then chuckled, grinning at the tall man leaning on the opposite wall. Victor Maxiss glanced after West as well, then stood and stretched. It had been a long day... emotionally and physically exhausting, as the wrap-ups to major cases often were... and where West found the energy to play the playboy was beyond him.
"Abbe coming?" he asked, glancing at the nearest door. Manda shook her head, following the gaze.
"She's sitting up with Michael."
Vic nodded. Abbe was barely recovered from the ordeal of this last case herself, her memories of the events coming slowly back to her as the hours wore on, but her devotion to her friend and partner was something none of her fellow FBI agents cared to challenge. If Michael O'Leary, lying in the hospital bed weak from dehydration and shock, were able to comment on the situation, he'd have pointed out that "stubborn" was one of her two middle names. New Orleans kidnappers, empathic leeches, the aftereffects of prolonged mind-control, and alien entities be damned, Abigail Beck would not leave her friend's bedside.
The rest of them were hardly in better shape, though, Vic thought. Several days of sleep deprivation and intense emotional turmoil - both internal and projected - had left more than one agent feeling the need for a vacation. It had taken the better part of the afternoon for Manda to stop shaking entirely, and even now her face was pale and somewhat drawn. Drami had already taken her leave, flying back to Washington and her fiancee on the pretense of getting a jump on paperwork before the weekend. Kat Raab, senatorial aide, had been swept off with the family of her Senator upon returning to them their lost child.
"Someone has to look after Michael." Manda had pointed out, when Vic had inquired of her own travel plans. "And Abbe." And West had made a remark about "finding trouble," and the three of them had laughed, and stayed.
Now, however, Vic glanced at the bulky carry-all at his fellow agent's feet, with the corner of a board game box protruding from the corner, and scanned Manda's face. She did have a headache - of that he had no doubt - but there was certainly something deeper at work.
"Coming?" Manda asked, then heaved the bag to her shoulder and started for the elevators at the far end of the hall, eyes straight ahead, or on the floor. Vic fell in step beside her easily.
"So... what's the real reason you're not out painting the town?"
Manda smiled, eyes still downturned. "I'm that transparent, huh?" she asked. "Truth, Vic? Besides the fact that I don't think West's idea of a good time agrees with mine... I have a friend here, and I promised I'd visit." She paused, nibbling her lip, apprehensive. "Listen... if you want to take off, I can grab a cab back to the hotel, or something. I understand. Not everyone gets their kicks hanging out in hospitals."
"Not everyone goes tramping around in sewers and says it's in the job description, either." Vic noted mildly. The elevator chimed, doors sliding open, and he stepped in without another word. Manda followed after a second's hesitation, regarding him with a curious expression. She pushed a button, then stared fixedly at the floor for a long moment.
"I..." Her voice sounded muted in the confined space, and she stammered, blushing. "I never got a chance to say thank you for that. you know. For the other day. In the sewers." She trailed off, fingers playing on the strap of her carry-all. "But I meant to, Vic. Thank you."
Thank you? Vic glanced down, still silent but curious. He knew what she meant... it was as clear in his memory as it was in hers. He wished it wasn't. "Thank you" for what? For pulling Manda away from the living pillar of light that had held her fast, sobbing and writhing in pain? For doing his job? His teammate had been in danger; he'd simply done what was necessary. Nothing more, nothing less. He was tempted to say as much... but then Manda, as if sensing his scrutiny, looked up. Given the full impact of that wide-eyed regard, that sheepish half-smile, "it's nothing" no longer seemed appropriate. A twist of a smile worked its way onto his face.
"Ah." he shrugged. "You'd have done the same thing."
"Yes." The unhesitating conviction was evident, despite the soft delivery, and he raised an eyebrow. She meant it. "But I wanted to say it anyway. I owe you one."
Silence filled the car again, and Vic had the random thought that he could well understand why claustrophobics hated elevators. The silence took up more room than the passengers. Manda had looked away again, a faint flush to her cheeks, embarrassed, perhaps, for having spoken at all. As if, for all the world, this was something new to her, and the unfamiliarity settled uneasily in the silence. She really did feel the need to thank him. To "owe" him.
"So." he said, not looking at her, either. "Who's this friend?"
The car stopped, and the doors slid open, and Vic caught that odd little sideways glance again as Manda moved out into the hall, then paused for him. It was the pediatric wing - Winnie-the-Pooh beamed at them from a wall mural, Tigger pointed the way to the reception desk, and Manda stood between them, looking at the floor. Vic leaned on Rabbit's red nose, waiting, and coughed softly.
Manda nibbled her lip again, wondering why it was suddenly so hard to give an answer. Bullets she could duck... off-duty questions were harder. Why not tell him? Why hesitate?
Because real FBI agents don't go getting all mushy over cases? Because you don't want him to know that you can't just brush this off? Because you know what your ex-partner would say about this...
He was still watching her, watching with that same patient expression he wore when doing paperwork, or waiting for the elevator. No judgment, no irritation, no smugness. No, none of that... Vic was not Alex.
Manda glanced down the hall, then back again.
"You remember the bodies in the sewers?" Stupid question, she thought. As if he could forget. As if any of them could forget. But Vic simply nodded - and then she was telling him about Angela. One of the sewer children - so much like the tiny, lost faces they'd found there, in those last hours of the case. The child of something they'd thought a monster, something that she called "Grand-pere LeBete" - Grandfather Beast. The frail, blue-eyed little thing, so tiny, so alone. So vital to their investigation - she'd provided information that had, in the end, saved Abbe's life... and Michael's. Little Angela, her "grand-pere's" Little Angel, who had wept at being separated from the only family she wanted... the family she would never rejoin.
"I promised her I'd come back." Manda said simply.
Vic said nothing... only nodded, smiled, and took a step down the hall.
The blue eyes could have belonged to a Disney animated heroine, Vic thought, or a Japanese cartoon. They were large enough to dominate the child's painfully thin face, framed by wispy blonde hair so pale it could almost be considered white. Set against the starkness of hospital-white pillowcases and sheets, whiter than clouds in any angelic portrait, all that was missing was a glitter-foil halo; this was the angel Gabriel from some church's Christmas Eve pageant, lost, gone astray, somewhere.
The eyes turned at their approach, no expression whatsoever on the little girl's face... until recognition flushed the pale cheeks rosy, those incredibly round eyes squinted in a cheek-to-cheek grin.
"Manda!!!" Two arms, twig-thin, came up, fingers fluttering like the tip of an excited kitten's tail, stretching for a hug. Manda, dropping her bag to the side, crossed the room to do that service. "I knew you'd come back." The little-girl voice was muffled inside the hug, and Manda sat back on the edge of the bed.
"I told you I would." She stretched out a finger, pointing, accusing. "Didn't I, Angel? Hmmm?" And she "beeped" the little pug nose, and both of them giggled.
"You told me. You told me!" And now the voice was choked with laughter - Manda was tickling the girl, who squirmed and writhed, the face that had been so pale turning several shades of pink and melon all at once. Angela squealed, batting at the adult hands... then froze, eyes wide again, face draining to its original shade. "Manda, who's that?"
She was not afraid -Vic knew what a frightened child looked like, and the expression on the little girl's face was certainly not that. She stared at him -fixedly, curiously, as if she was wondering what he was still doing in the doorway. Manda, who had apparently forgotten that he was still there, flushed as she turned.
"That's my friend Vic, Angel. He's visiting here with me." She tilted her head, wordlessly extending the invitation... and Vic came in, dropping into a chair on the other side of the bed, leaning forward to catch the girl's eye.
"I'm Angela." she said, gazing at him, and extended a hand. "Very pleased to meet you, Mr. Vic." Vic, unable to look away, felt a chuckle rising at the solemnity of the statement. He engulfed the tiny hand with one of his own, shaking it as though it belonged to a diplomat at a one of those wretched Washington dinner parties.
"And I'm pleased to meet you, Angela." he answered, with what he hoped was equal dignity. "But it's just Vic, okay?"
"Grandpere LeBete says that it is always important for a young lady to be polite when greeting a strange gentleman." The words sounded years older than the speaker, or drawn from some point in the distant past. Victorian Boston, perhaps... but then the grin blossomed forth again. "We had tea parties, to practice. But I'll call you Vic, then, and you can call me Angel, Vic. That's what Grandpere called me... his Little Angel."
"I can see why."
Little Chatterbox is more like it... Vic thought, not unkindly. Manda's description of a frightened, timid-voiced little creature hadn't prepared him for the imp who had trounced two FBI agents at three consecutive games of Chutes and Ladders and CandyLand, who had insisted on reading Charlotte's Web aloud to them, who had filled most of the intervening gaps with spirited retellings of how one learned to play hide-and-seek in the sewers, and how Johnny had fallen into the Yucky Water once, and how Rachel had created puppets that made even "Grand-pere LeBete" laugh.
It was that last tale that seemed to remind Angel of something she was missing... and the lateness of the hour, far past a small girl's bedtime, gave her reason to pause, and yawn, and ask the question both agents had been dreading.
"When can I go home to Grandpere, Manda?" The question was perfectly frank, with no overtones of sorrow... Manda would tell her the truth, the voice said. There was no doubt about that. "I'm feeling better now... I am, really. Will they let me go home, soon?"
Vic's eyes found his companion's, full of sympathy. He'd felt a chill in the wake of that question... how would Manda take it?
Manda, however, betrayed no worry, no hesitation... her soft, gentle voice was not patronizing, not in the least bit didactic, the tones generally taken by adults who must be the bearers of bad news.
"Angel..." And she took the small hands in her own, squeezing gently. "Angel, you'll be able to go home soon... but not to your Grand-pere."
Blue eyes flooded with tears instantly... but rather than the expected protest of "Why?" there came a whimper, a sniffle... and a tone that said that somehow, somewhere, the little girl had expected that answer.
"He's gone away, Manda?" Tears coursed down pale cheeks as the eyes scanned first Manda's face, then Vic's. "He went away, like he said he might?"
"Yes..." Vic answered for Manda, glancing at her for permission, diverting the child's attention. "He had to go away, Angel."
"Forever?"
"Forever." That was Manda, and the tiny hands withdrew from hers as the "little Angel" hugged herself into a ball, shaking all over with sobs.
"I didn't get to say good-bye..."
"Oh, Angel... he knows you wanted to. He knows." There might be tears behind Manda's voice as well, Vic thought... she stroked the child, murmuring reassurances, until the cries faded to sniffles, and the blue eyes reappeared.
"Did Grand-pere find me a new family?" she asked. "He said he would..."
"Do you want a new family?" Manda glanced at Vic, expression guarded... but Angela took the question very much in stride, lips pursing, picking at the blanket.
"I dunno..." And she shrugged finally. "I want to go home... but I don't know where home is, Manda. I... I can't remember." She sniffled, tears threatening again. "I remember Mommy... and dogs... and stairs... but I don't know where that is!"
"Would you like us to find them for you, Angel?" The sound of his own voice surprised him, but Vic smiled as the pale face turned to him, wondering.
"Can you do that?" she breathed.
"It's one of the things we do..." And he almost laughed, aware all the time of Manda watching him.
"We're your friends, Angel." she said softly. "We want to help you."
"Now?"
Vic did laugh now, ruffling the blonde head. "It's a bit late now, young lady. You should be getting to bed."
"But will you come back?" Angel glanced between the two adults, her expression suddenly anxious, and Manda squeezed her hands once.
"We'll come back."
"Promise?" The little voice was decided wistful. "You won't leave me, too?"
"Promise." Vic met Manda's solemn brown eyes over the child's head. They held his for a moment, then turned away, saddened. Angela, however, was oblivious to the adult's silent interchange. Satisfied with the response, she yawned, splaying her fingers like a sleepy kitten, and stretched up to kiss Manda on the cheek. Sinking back to the pillow, she blinked up at Vic. Then, without hesitation or apparent forethought, she clambered sleepily into his lap, winding too-thin arms about his neck and dropping her head to his shoulder. She sighed once, a long, peaceful breath, the featherweight of her body settling into the warm, drowsy heaviness of the sleeping.
"So what are you going to do?" Vic asked at last, looking away from his companion, out the window into the night. Manda was a while in replying... and he could almost see her nibbling that lip again. Know her that well already, do you? he asked himself, and smiled.
"I'm going to do what I promised." she finally said, the voice quiet but firm. "I'm going to find her family. She's got a mother... and a father, somewhere. I'll make a few calls, see what I can turn up..." She trailed off. "I just can't leave her, Vic. Not like this."
"Branch office isn't far from the hotel." It was a statement, nothing more, but Vic caught the flicker of a smile reflected in the glass as Manda turned to look at him. "Couldn't hurt to stop in... in the morning."
"No, it couldn't."
The elevator doors closed, shutting off the sight of two nurses just coming onto the evening shift and leaving the two agents alone once more. Manda fidgeted slightly, searching for words. Vic, absorbed in his own thoughts, barely noticed. He hadn't spoken a word since he had tucked the sleeping 'Little Angel' back into her bed with an almost practiced ease. There was no need to speak, nothing to speak of, really... and yet, something in that witnessed action, in the memory of the gentleness she hadn't expected to see, made Manda reluctant to allow the silence to hold.
"Do you have a little sister, Vic?" She seemed to recall a photo on his desk, glimpsed in passing... and was rewarded by a quiet smile and nod that spoke volumes more than she'd expected. "Courtney. She's in college. Good kid." An eyebrow raised in question as they boarded the elevator. "You?"
"Two. Beth's getting married in the spring, and Jannie's in college... took off to Massachusetts, to a little women's college our aunt graduated from. She keeps sending me tee shirts..."
"Like the one that said 'Elms College: Where women are women and men are visitors,' right?" Vic chuckled. "I remember that one."
"You should. You soaked me last time I wore it!"
"I wasn't the one who threw the first water balloon." he reminded her, and winked.
Manda rolled her eyes and looked away, smiling.
"So." Vic grinned, and deftly changed the subject. "Are you going to check in on Abbe and Michael?"
Manda nodded, readjusting the strap of her carry-all as the elevator doors opened. The pair walked towards the room, but stopped short when a nurse emerged from Michael's room. Both agents shot each other a worried glance, but this melted to relief when the nurse held a finger to her lips and whispered, "They're asleep."
With a wordless look, Vic followed as Manda moved softly to the door, peering in. A single lamp, muted, revealed the silent room's occupants... Michael, stretched out flat, and Abbe, curled in a chair nearby, head drooping, one hand resting on her friend's shoulder.
After a moment, Manda moved back into the hall, glancing back only once, and smiling at the floor. Vic smiled, too, catching her eye and motioning for her to follow his retreat to the elevator.
"Looks like some folks had the right idea, anyway." he said, one eyebrow quirking up. "I don't know about you, but we've seen three people to bed tonight... and if I'm not the next one to turn in..." Manda chuckled, and glanced at him sideways.
"I know, I know..."
"And that goes for you, too, young lady." Vic glanced up at the elevator chime, then waggled an admonishing finger. "If we don't get some rest, neither of us will be in any shape to lean on our Branch friends tomorrow."
"We? Us?" It was pleasant surprise that colored his companion's tone as they stepped into the elevator, doors hissing shut..
"We. Us. What, you need a definition?"
"We. Us. Collective pronouns, meaning more than one person... usually the speaker, and someone else." Manda recited, folding her arms across her chest. "You know what I mean, Vic."
"Yes." Vic nodded, his smile teasing her. "And you know what I mean. You," and he put slight emphasis on the word, making Manda roll her eyes. "... have a promise that needs keeping. And I," he smirked, jingling the car keys. "Have the keys to the car. Therefore..."
"We," said Manda. "Are going to the Branch office tomorrow."
"Yes! She can be taught!" Vic crowed, and ducked as Manda took a good-natured swing at him. They fell silent, then, until the elevator stopped with a soft and certain bump.
"Vic?" Manda held back in the elevator for a moment, touching her companion's arm briefly, hesitantly.
"Hmm?"
"Thanks."
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