Answer to Angela B’s January ’06 Challenge: In any open AU, have the guys reflect on the
worst thing that went wrong in the previous year, then have them reflecting on
what they want to accomplish in the coming year.
To Better Days Ahead
By Helen Adams
“Dear
God, what a miserable day this has been,” Ezra groaned, shifting uncomfortably
in his deeply upholstered recliner. He
had wrenched his lower back while knocking Buck out of the path of a bullet during
a warehouse raid and the abused muscles were now twinging with every move he
made.
Squinting
through a lightly concussed haze, the result of knocking his head on a cement
floor when Ezra had tackled him, Buck protested, “It could have been
worse. One of us could’ve been shot.”
“True
enough, but I’m with Ezra,” Vin said, vaguely waving
his plaster-encased left arm. The beam
he had been perched on during the raid had unexpectedly snapped under his
weight as he scooted forward and the Team Seven sharpshooter had tumbled to the
hard warehouse floor, managing to land on one of the escaping gun-runners, but
breaking his own arm in the process. “It
was like we was all cursed with bad luck or
something. For awhile, I didn’t think
the gun buyers were even gonna show, and then they finally turned up and
weren’t gonna make the damn deal. If Ezra hadn’t sweet-talked ‘em into accepting the original terms,
the whole damn thing would’ve been a wash.”
“Oh, yes,
and my powers of persuasion were so
effective,” Ezra said sarcastically.
“Good enough to convince those cretins to take the guns and pass us the
payment along with a personal sample of what those guns could do. If I’d been a second later in reacting, Mr.
Wilmington would now be missing a significant portion of his cranium.”
Buck
vaguely waved a hand in dismissal. “I’m
here, ain’t I?” he said. “Got a lump on
my head that makes each of you look like you’ve grown a twin, had to call off
my date so there’s nobody to kiss at
JD came
in from the kitchen with a bottle of sparkling cider. He topped off Buck’s
glass, then poured a fresh serving out for Vin and
Josiah, who had each been given pain medication and so could not partake in
alcohol. Ezra had been prescribed pain
meds for his back as well, but refused to ring in a New Year with anything less
than the Dom Perignon he had bought for the occasion. Dom was worth a little suffering, and as long
as he didn’t move, everything was fine.
“Look on
the bright side, you guys,” JD said, lowering himself down to sit on the carpet
next to Buck’s chair. “Because of what you did this morning, we’ll have a few
less bad guys to start the year off with.”
“Least
you managed to arrest yours,” Chris grunted, raising his glass of champagne to
them briefly before taking a gulp. “If
the bureau was so short-handed with people out for the holidays that they
needed to split us up; they could have at least stocked enough people in
surveillance to make sure they had the locations right!”
Next to
him on the sofa, Josiah chuckled. “Now
that was a comedy of errors for certain.”
Gingerly fingering the bandage over his right eyebrow, he added, “Not
only did they send us to a different convenience store than the one that’s been
selling alcohol to minors, they had to do it on New Year’s Eve, when everyone
in the world was out buying booze!”
“I’ve
been meaning to ask. How did you manage
to upset that little old lady enough that she clocked you with a bottle of
champagne anyway?” Nathan asked curiously, shaking his head at the sight of his
four battered teammates. “I was in the
back room getting some more supplies and came out just in time to see her
swinging that bottle and you falling like a chopped oak tree.”
Josiah
grimaced. “Seems some people don’t wait
for
Ezra
started to laugh, then immediately gasped when his abused back protested the
shaking. “As I said, a
miserable day.”
“Not like
we haven’t had worse times this year,” JD protested.
“Is that
supposed to make us feel better?” Chris growled.
JD
shrugged. “Well, sort of. Nobody’s in the hospital right now and you
guys’ll recover pretty fast from the injuries you’ve got. Remember the chemical explosion last
February? I think those burns I got on
my arms hurt worse than anything I’ve ever felt. Took forever for my skin to
get back to normal.”
Josiah
and Chris both automatically reached up to finger their eyebrows, as though
assuring themselves that the features had, in fact, grown back.
“That was
bad,” Nathan agreed. “And it was just
like you boys to go and get yourselves blown up on my day off, too.”
“Well,
you made up the difference last spring,” Josiah reminded him, chuckling as he
thought back. “You took enough shrapnel from
that old man with the moonshine still and the shotgun to keep you in Fate’s
good graces for about a decade, I think.
The people at the hospital were picking lead out of your ass for an
hour.”
Smirks
flickered across the other’s faces, and Buck quipped, “Good thing you got
plenty to spare back there, Nate. That
old coot came pretty close to shooting it off for ya!”
“Least I
didn’t hold a memorial service for what I lost, the way you did a couple months
back,” Nathan grunted.
Buck
instantly flushed, causing Chris to chuckle. “He’s got a point there, big fella. First time I
ever saw anybody go into official mourning just because they had an equipment
malfunction. It happens to every man
sooner or later, y’know.”
“Ever
happen to you?” he demanded, just as he had at the time.
And just
as he had at the time, Chris
hurriedly protested, “Of course not!” causing everyone else to break into
laughter.
Pitching
a paper napkin in Buck’s direction, Vin said, “Your
little buddy there was just protesting the working conditions, I figure. Needed a rest an’ decided to take a
vacation.”
“Who you callin’ little?” Buck growled, then
abruptly changing the subject, he turned to Ezra. “What was your worst time this past year?”
Ezra did
not hesitate, shooting Chris a dark look as he said succinctly, “Marcell’s.”
Chris
smiled blandly and said, “That nightclub was transporting and selling imported
liquor without a license, and you got the proof. I figured you could handle the job.”
“And I did,”
he said flatly, “but you led me to believe that I was to be cast in the role of
bartender. Not telling me until we
arrived that I was to be part of the floor-show was just rude.”
“Maybe
so,” Nathan said, his deep chuckle rolling through the room, “but you made a
pretty good transvestite. It was a
little scary, actually. Half the guys in
that audience wanted to take you home.”
Vin
was laughing so hard his eyes were tearing.
“That fella who jumped on the stage and tried
to grab your ass is probably still singin’ soprano.”
Each
affecting a bad southern-tinged falsetto, Buck and JD chimed in, “I’m not that
kind of entertainer!”
Ezra
flipped up a middle finger and waved it in the general direction of his
guffawing teammates as he sipped from his champagne flute and muttered,
“Bastards.”
“You’ve
had to put up with worse,” Chris said heartlessly, then with a chuckle, added,
“Besides, if you want to blame somebody, blame Josiah. Switching your assignment was his idea.”
A look of
outrage filled the southerner’s face.
“What?”
Josiah
smiled. “Seemed
appropriate. After all, you know
what they say, don’t you? Payback is a
bitch.” Seeing Ezra’s frown of
incomprehension, he raised an eyebrow.
“April? My
truck?”
A
slightly guilty looking grin flickered over Ezra’s face. “Oh, yes.
That’s hardly fair, though. After
all, what happened to your vehicle was an accident. Just a regrettable
miscalculation, really. And it
isn’t as though I failed to replace your Suburban. With a much newer and more
reliable model, at that!”
“It’s the
principle of the thing,” Vin cut in. “You don’t mess
with a man’s vehicle.”
“Says the
man who found the junkyard we hid it in!” Ezra retorted indignantly. Refocusing on Josiah, his voice took on a
note of chagrin. “It was only supposed to be an April Fool’s
day joke, to make you walk through the junkyard and see if you could recognize
which piece of rolling rusted scrap-metal was your own. How could I have foreseen that the owner
would get his work-orders mixed up and put your vehicle in the crusher?”
“Still
not sure I buy that you didn’t know,” Josiah muttered. “Not after all the times you tried to talk me
into replacing that truck.”
Buck
grinned. “I think he did you a
favor. Think of all the money you saved on
spare parts and tow-trucks over the last nine months. Not to mention all the days you haven’t
needed to call one of us to bring you into work when that old heap broke down.”
“Your
insurance costs went down too,” Nathan said helpfully. “And we don’t spend so much time worrying
that you’ll blow something vital and wind up in a ditch somewhere.”
“It
really was an accident,” Ezra said again.
After
staring him down for a moment, Josiah gave a reluctant nod. “I suppose it was, and I really do like the
new one. The CD player alone is probably
worth as much as I could have gotten for selling the old one.”
“More,”
Ezra muttered, rapidly knocking back the remainder of his champagne and
grunting as the sudden movement aggravated his sore back.
“You
better go easy on that,” Nathan told him.
“
Ezra favored
him with a lopsided smile. “Ah, but this
is so much more flavorful an analgesic.”
The medic
snorted. “Might not be worth it in the
morning when your back is all stiff and your head’s about to fall off too.”
“Jesus, Nate. You really
know how to make a person look forward to a New Year,” Buck grunted.
Feeling a
need to change the subject, JD asked, “Anybody got any New Year’s resolutions?”
“Don’t
bother with ‘em,” Vin told
him with a shrug. “Seems kinda silly to make promises to do something you ain’t been
willin’ to do the whole rest of the year, just
because the calendar is changing over.”
“I do,”
Nathan countered. “I like to look at the
changing of the year as a fresh start.
My resolution for next year is to spend less time worrying about things
that are out of my control.”
Josiah
nodded. “A good
choice, my friend. Sometimes I
fear that you’re going to worry yourself right into an ulcer. For my part, I’d like to devote the coming
months to reconnecting with some of the parts of my life I’ve let slide; old
friends and interests that I’ve allowed to drift away.”
“Guess
I’ll resolve to learn how to delegate,” Chris decided, grimacing at the very
idea. “Travis has been on my back for
months about giving you guys more responsibility and not trying to control
every situation.”
Buck
chuckled. “Who are you kidding,
Larabee? Your picture’s in the
dictionary under ‘Control Freak’. You
start delegating, without checking up
on us every five minutes, and I’ll start cutting myself back to one date a
week!”
“A most
charitable resolution, Mr. Wilmington,” Ezra said approvingly. “Cutting yourself back to only 52 women a
year should finally leave a bit of uncharted territory for the rest of us.”
Vin
added, “Hey, Buck. Maybe you could post
a schedule in the break room so we can all know who’s still free.”
Watching
Buck’s mouth working in shocked silent protest, Chris grinned wickedly. “Right nice of you to help
me out by providing an incentive, Buck.
Looks like it’s shaping up to be a good year already.”
“Perhaps
you and I could work on our resolutions together, Mr. Larabee,” Ezra
suggested. “I should very much like to
learn the art of functioning in a position of authority, preferably without
drawing the ire of those around me.”
Shocked
by the declaration, Chris simply said, “You?”
Ezra was a man who preferred to do things his own way, and who could
manipulate others into doing nearly anything he wanted them to, but he was also
notoriously reluctant to issue orders.
Chris suspected that Ezra’s checkered past had left him with the
certainty that no one would respect his decisions, much less obey his commands,
were he to ever take on a leadership role. He did not want to be responsible for anyone
getting hurt because of him.
Reading
all of this in Larabee’s face, Ezra shifted
uncomfortably in his recliner and dropped his gaze. “There reaches a point at which even the best
of undercover specialists cannot safely perform that function any longer,
either for personal reasons or because he becomes too easily recognizable to
the local criminal element. I haven’t
reached that point yet, but I know that it will come. Perhaps I’m not suited to being a team
leader, such as you, but I do have a great deal of experience in a wide variety
of fields. I believe that those skills could benefit others; in an
instructional capacity, perhaps.”
“I think
that’s a great idea,” JD encouraged, nodding his approval. “When I started learning Undercover this
year, you were real good at teaching me what I needed to know without trying to
do it for me.”
Buck
nodded, “Kid’s right, Ez. You got a cool head and a sneaky mind. I don’t want to lose you any time soon, but
any team’d be lucky to follow your lead.”
“Quick
reflexes and that ability you got to see all the angles would benefit a young
team, in particular,” Nathan agreed, earning himself a surprised look from
Ezra. “You could stop rookies from doing
something stupid that might get ‘em killed before
they get a lot of experience under their belts.”
Vin
grinned at Chris. “He’s a hell of a lot
more patient with paperwork and PR schmoozing than you are,
too. I’ll bet Ezra’d
take to team leadership like a duck to water.”
Ezra’s
green eyes shone with pleasure at his teammates’ unexpected show of
support. Seeing this, Chris made his
decision. “I had no idea you were even
interested, Ezra, but I’d be happy to show you what I can. Give you a little experience commanding in
the field maybe.”
“That would
be most appreciated,” he replied. “I’ve
always believed that if one is to take on a new challenge, it is advisable to
learn from the best.”
Larabee
raised his glass in appreciation of the compliment, then
asked, “What about you, JD? What’s your
resolution?”
The young
man shrugged. “It’s not work related or
anything.”
“So what?” Vin said.
“Give.”
Everyone’s
interest was piqued when JD suddenly flushed bright red and began to
stammer. “Well, I, um…I’ve kinda been saving my money for awhile and…well, I’ve been
thinking that me and Casey…”
As JD
trailed off, Buck, who had been slouching lazily in his seat, suddenly sat bolt upright and clapped a hand on his shoulder. “Holy shit, Kid! You tryin’
to tell us that you finally got up the nerve to marry that little girl?”
An embarrassed grin lit the young man’s face as he nodded. The room erupted with excited whoops and
questions, and JD held up a hand to quiet the din. “I haven’t asked her yet! She’ll be away visiting her cousins until
Wednesday. We got a date on Friday, and
I kind of thought I might ask her then.”
“I’m sure
you’ll have no difficulty gaining the young lady’s approval,” Ezra said
brightly, looking as proud as if he’d engineered the entire relationship
himself. “Congratulations, my friend.”
Buck
wiped away a mock tear from the corner of his eye. “My baby’s leaving the nest,” he said
mournfully, then laughed as JD smacked him in the leg. “Way to go, Kid.”
“You got
a ring?” Nathan asked seriously. “I made
the mistake of waiting to get the ring until after I’d asked Raine and she didn’t think I was serious at first.”
JD
grinned happily. “Yep. I had my mom’s wedding ring resized. Nettie helped me
figure out the right size.”
“So, that mean you asked Nettie’s
permission?” Vin pressed, nodding approvingly.
“Not permission exactly. I guess I just
wanted to make sure she approved.”
Chris
nodded. “That’ll make things easier,” he
grunted, remembering his own difficult relationship with his former
father-in-law, a man who had never approved of the choice his daughter had
made. “Congratulations, kid. I hope you two share as much happiness as
Sarah and I did.”
Surprised
by Chris’ casual mention of his late wife, JD smiled shyly. “Thanks, Chris. That means a lot.”
“And on
that happy note, I see that it’s almost
Six
voices chorused back, “Happy New Year,” and seven glasses clinked together just
as Ezra’s grandfather clock struck
The End
Feedback
is always appreciated! virginiacitygirl@comcast.net