"Hey, Hitch, can you help me with this thing?" Ruby calls across the office to Hitch.

"No, why don't you ask Blacker? You have legs," Hitch calls back from where he's working on paperwork.

"But it's so far away. And you took my watch so I can't call him," Ruby whines.

"And why did LB take Bradley Baker's watch back again?" Hitch asks, trying to remind her of everything she's done lately.

"Because apparently, I endanger my life a lot," Ruby fires back, frustration clear in her voice. She thought LB was crazy, and just being an annoying rule follower with how often she harps at Ruby to 'follow the rules' 'care about her life' 'not endanger others so much' and do many other boring things.

She'd been an idiot to voice these opinions to Blacker, with Froghorn in the room. Not twenty minutes later, LB had some in and confiscated her watch. Sure, it's technically Baker's, but he's dead. He had no use for it and gave it to her before he died. It's hers now, and LB shouldn't be able to just take it like that.

However, she's the boss. She benched Ruby, to where the only thing she could do was desk duty for the next month. Why would she not take one of Ruby's personal possessions?

"I think it went more along the lines of going behind our backs to endanger your life, and the saying that all actions have consequences. If you must know, I agree with what she did, so don't go looking to me for support when you try to form an anarchy."

"Who's trying to form an anarchy?" Blacker asks, coming in for the last part of Hitch's response.

Ruby and Hitch respond at the exact same time, saying "Ruby is," and "No one," respectively.

"Why would you form an anarchy?" Blacker asks.

"Because LB is being unfair," Ruby complains, and Blacker has to stiffen every muscle in his body to keep from laughing. It's not very often, but occasionally, very occasionally, Ruby does act her age. It's always amusing and cute when it happens, for everyone but Ruby, that is.

That's why they've delayed doing a very important part of field agent initiative. They all agreed to wait until she was officially a teenager. However, she's sixteen and a half now. They've had plenty of time to start it, as Froghorn brought to their attention.

Hitch and Blacker make eye contact. Hitch gives the slightest of nods, and Blacker sighs. It'll be nice not having to fetch coffee for the next month. And, he's sure Ruby will forgive him. It's not like this will be the worst hazing she gets during the month.

Even LB joins in on the hazing. Everyone does. It's a whole agency thing. She'll be having to fetch a lot of things. Froghorn has already planned some of his out, including making her pronounce his name correctly for the entire month. They aren't going overboard, since she's still a teenager, but they're not going to make it a cake walk for her either.

"Ruby, could you come with me? We need your help in the coding room," Blacker starts, and Hitch gives him an unimpressed look. "I have to talk about something with Hitch first, so run along."

"I thought it was starting?" Hitch says in a dead tone voice.

"Look, I'm not happy about it either. But it's tradition. Everyone went through it, and everyone survived." Blacker explains.

"It's a stupid tradition brought on by someone whom everyone hero worships and liked pranks a bit too much. And you're right, everyone survived. And then they took more risks in the field than what they needed to because they felt as if they needed to prove themselves." Hitch snaps back.

"If I'm remembering the lore correctly, you also participated in the hazing when Baker originally started it with LB. You're so mad now because it's Ruby that's going to be on the receiving end."

"Yes, Blacker! Alright. I'm furious that the kid is going to have to face this. Her mental health and self preservation skills are fragile as is; I can't have her doing something hare-brained and losing her because of some office hazing that got to her head!"

Blacker closes his eyes. He understands where Hitch is coming from. However, the hypocrisy bothers him beyond belief. That's why most of them are participating in this. To teach Hitch a lesson, one he should have learned a long time ago.

Well, most everyone. A few hold a grudge that they want to settle. Honestly, Froghorn should learn to just let things go. While the man is a genius, he is certainly an acquired taste and tends to overlook the obvious people connections.

"That's why we're going to be careful. Notice how I asked instead of demanded. We know the rules, and we're going to find them. But, as you said when I didn't want to do it to Miles, it's tradition. We have to do it."

Blacker leaves after those words. Hopefully Hitch will think about them. Hopefully Ruby will be the last one they have to haze. Hopefully she'll forgive him. Hopefully they won't cause any damage like what Hitch fears.

Everyone knows that's far too many hopefully in a row for them all to come true. Everyone in Spectrum, even Froghorn, knew it, and was thinking the same thing sometime that day. No one knew how it would turn out, but they knew, they just knew, that one of those hopefully wouldn't be a reality. They were all prepared to deal with one. They had a plan for one of them being broken. They forgot Ruby Rule 36: Always come up with Plan B before you have embarked on Plan A. They weren't prepared to come up with a plan A, besides a vague idea, much less a plan B.

Blacker steels his nerves before entering the coding room. This was going to be hard, without a doubt. Hard for everyone. They were all regretting this, and they hadn't done anything yet. Ruby had a way of worming herself into your heart, even if you're trying to hate her, you just can't. She's one of those people that are far too likable.

Blacker goes into the room, and winces at the shocked look at Ruby's face. It seems Miles broke the news, and not gently if Ruby's shocked face was anything to go by.

"Blacker, Froghorn needs to see Sewell. The poor bozo is obviously losing it. He was blathering about a mandatory hazing period lasting a month long where I had to do everything everyone said. There is no way LB would allow this. There is no way this is true, or happens!" By the end of it, Ruby is worked up. Her face is all scrunched up, and it seems as if she took up Clancy's habit of flapping her eyes when agitated.

"Ruby, I'm sorry-" Is all Blacker can get out before she pushes past him and runs away.

Miles and Blacker exchange a look. That could have gone better, and went slightly worse than what they expected, but it's Ruby. They could never really predict what she would do next. They had to just hope for the best.

Neither wants to go after her, but they both know that they need to be the ones to find her. To continue explaining things for Blacker, since Froghorn did such a poor job at it. For Miles, to apologize, since he was a little harsher than what he needed to be because of how agitated he got.

He knew he shouldn't have snapped and said some of the things he did, about how she would finally be shown her place as just an errand girl, but he couldn't help it. All he could remember was how Hitch treated him during his hazing, and just snapped. He knows Ruby isn't Hitch, and while hurting her does hurt him, it hurts her more. He just didn't realize it. At least not in enough time to stop the words from coming out of his mouth.

They spread out searching for her. Surprisingly enough, neither of them find her first. Nor does LB, as one might have suspected. She has a knack for appearing at the exact time no one wants her to. It isn't Hitch either, nor SJ, Harper, or even Sewell. It was Holbrook.

They met up in the canteen, and found her and Kip Holbrook sharing a thing of fries, with each their own drink.

"Like I said, it's no fun. The hazing can get brutal, but it's somehow supposed to help us bond and wash away any underlying grudges that might be carried by some people. Everyone has gone through it. I just finished mine a few weeks ago, so the survival tips are fresh on my mind.

"First of all, don't take anything personal. It's not meant to be, they're just playing a role that they're supposed to. Second of all, keep your mouth shut. Mouthing back will only make things worse, trust me. In most cases, it's best not to say anything at all. If you must say something, honorifics are the best. I know it goes against everything in your bones, but if you want to leave this with some sanity, you will have to do it this way.

"I can't really think of much else that would be of a lot of use. Those two things pretty much cover everything. Make sure you keep your mouth shut, and don't take things personal. Don't count down the days though, they pass a lot slower when you do that. Oh, and don't try to skip a lot of days. This is like school, you have to make up the days that you skip."

"Thanks, Holbrook. You're not the absolute worst out of our class of recruits," Ruby responds, fooling no one with her smile.

"Careful Redfort. You might just convince me that you actually like me," Kip teases back.

"As if," Ruby scoffs.

She turns her head, and sees Blacker and Froghorn standing in the doorway. Might as well rip the bandaid off.

She racks her brain, before remembering how each took their coffees. Black for Froghorn, and with a far unhealthy amount of creamer and sugar for Blacker. Sweet and condensed milk too, if they have it here, which they don't. She'll have to bring it in on her own.

I can't believe I'm accepting it lying down like this. Ruby thinks, partly in disgust before reminding herself of Rule 12: Adjust your thinking and your chances will improve. Thinking like she just had wasn't going to help her any. If Kip was to be believed, it would only hurt her.

"Here are your coffees, sirs. As Agent Froghorn requested," Ruby says as politely as she can muster. She even pronounced Froghorn's name correctly, as he requested.

"Thank you," Froghorn says, and tries to smile. It looks more like a grimace, but it's the thought and attempt that counts.

"You shouldn't have," Blackers says, accepting the coffee.

"Apparently that's all that I'm going to be good for the next month, so I best get used to it," Ruby says, trying to keep the bitterness out of her voice.

"You know it's not true," Blacker starts.

"Yeah. I'll also be useful for doing useless paperwork and following up on useless leads."

"Hey, not all of the leads will be useless. I thought that the music theory was useless, and it turned out to help figure out the whole case," Froghorn says, trying to sound comforting.

Over Ruby's head, he shoots Blacker a look demanding help. "It's not going to be as bad as what you think it will be. The month will be up before you even know it," Blacker tries to comfort.

"Thanks for the attempt to help." Ruby says, not bitter, but sad. She tries to hide it, and does a decent job throughout the day as she fetches everyone coffee. It's amazing how many different ways one can take to get to the same destination.

Mostly everyone is polite. Phrasing it as a question, or maybe a polite request that she could say no to. She knew the truth though, she couldn't say no. Not really.

Everyone has her doing different things. Walter made use of her vast knowledge of languages and made her take telephone calls while he sat there and did nothing. LB made her file boring paperwork, and fill it out while LB was telling her exactly what to write. Blacker had her fetch coffee, as did Froghorn, and she had to pronounce Froghorn's name correctly. SJ made her wait for the results of samples to come in.

All in all, it wasn't that bad. Ruby knew it wasn't that bad. She even got to work cases, like the one where a lot of jewelry was going missing out of high profile homes and it turned out that Beetle and some of his friends had trained a raccoon to steal it.

She had worked some others. And, surprisingly enough, Hitch was the one who had made her do it. She didn't really know how she felt about him participating in this whole process, until she realized that he was just making her study and try to solve cold cases.

So, yes. Life was just peachy for Ruby. Sure, she might have been the maid for everyone in Spectrum, but she got to work with some really cool cold cases.

And, yet, she was still crying herself to sleep every night. Literally. Hitch would bring her into the office, she would work during her lunch break at school, go back to school, return after school ended, work until past dinner, and then go home and take a shower. While in the shower, she would cry her eyes out, pretend that everything was fine while she wished her parents a good night, wishing they would notice that something was wrong even if she would have to lie to them about it.

No one noticed anything though. Not Clancy, who she hadn't told anything too. Not Mrs. Digby, who was always fussing about her weight, but now that Ruby didn't really get a chance to eat all that much isn't saying anything. Not her parents, who should notice that she isn't acting as outspoken as usual, and constantly has red eyes that can't just be from getting soap in her eyes. And, maybe the most betraying, not Hitch.

No, Hitch seemed to be avoiding her. He would take her to and from Spectrum, but that was it. No talking about a case over lunch. No meeting up with her for lunch or dinner, which might be one of the reasons that it's so easy to skip them. If there's no one to talk to, why eat?

Lunch is easier than dinner. They just pile up all the work on her, and she only has a forty-five minute break, hour and thirty if she skips recess too. Besides, if she eats a big breakfast than she won't be hungry, and if she starts to get hungry in the afternoon, she can always raid Blacker's snack drawer.

Sleep has been spotty too. She wants to sleep, but has too much energy. Then, she gets a spike of adrenaline when she thinks about all the homework she has to do, and stays up until one in the morning working on all of it. Then, since she still can't sleep, she starts to write down excuses to tell tomorrow for why she can't go to the football game on Friday night, the soccer tournament Saturday, the ping pong matches on Monday evening, swim day Sunday afternoon, and everything else for the rest of the month.

Yet, as busy and awful the weekdays were because of school and having to get up early, and balancing the two out but then having no time for herself and having to make up excuses why her eyes are always red and puffy in the mornings and she looks like she's sleep deprived, the weekends are so much worse.

It's easy to make up excuses to not hang out with the group when she has a case. When Ruby is actively doing something interesting for Spectrum, she doesn't miss everything that she's missing out on by not being at the gatherings. She isn't annoyed that she doesn't know the latest inside jokes, or that everyone got to try out the new flavor at Cherry's but her.

Yet, in the depths of the tunnels, in a room that has more dust than all of Spectrum's halls combined because no one goes in there unless they're being hazed, given the mind numbing and awful boring task of sorting all the cases by dates of the crime committed, she can't help but wonder what all she is missing out on.

Is Elliot laughing until he collapses right now? Is Del trying to get into a fight with someone? Is Mouse rolling her eyes at how factual incorrect something of the aforementioned two said? Is Clancy missing her? Has Red gained any balance in the two weeks since Ruby's seen her? What's the latest accident of one of them almost getting killed by doing something stupid? What did the latest Crazy Cops episode include? Was the newest James Bond, the one with Roger Moore any good?

And, no matter how much she tries to keep it in, no matter how much she wants to not cry, in that dusty old room, the tears start to fall. It's just too much, and it hasn't even been a half of the time.

This goes on for a week while she's sorting all of the files, and then all of the cold case files. Every day, she goes in, gets to work right where she left off the day before, tries not to think about all she's missing out on but eventually does, and starts to cry despite thinking happy thoughts and blinking like crazy.

The frustrating thing is that no one notices. She can finish up crying, go to the bathroom, wash her face the best she can, go and get Blacker and Froghorn coffee, deliver it right to them, and they won't notice a single thing.

It's not that they aren't saying anything. She has watched their faces to see a look of recognition as they see what's happening, or a look of pity. It never shows. They literally don't notice. In fact, on Saturday at the end of the third week, they didn't even look up from the code.

"One coffee with sweetened condensed milk, two sugars, and three pumps of creamer, and another completely black," Ruby says as she delivers coffee once again. She's gotten better at it; she rarely spills it or burns herself anymore.

"Good. Set it down. In about an hour, come back with some more. Do that until Hitch takes you home today. We have a pretty hard case that we're working on." Blacker says without looking up from the papers he's working on.

This is the first time this has happened, and it makes Ruby feel uneasy. At any other time, she would offer to help them, but she has a feeling that right now they would just say they didn't need help. She turns to leave, feeling tears of frustration prick her eyes.

"Oh, and keep out of my emergency snack drawer. I need those for work," Blacker says, and Ruby slightly freezes.

Blacker knew she was raiding the snack drawer. He knew, and he did nothing. He still let them work her to the point that she didn't have time to grab dinner. He didn't bother telling anyone to back off. And, now, he's taking away the only way that she can get food while at Spectrum.

"Go to your room, Ruby. I believe Hitch left a cold case for you to work on. Something about a murder ten years ago. I do hope it won't give you nightmares," Froghorn sneers as he looks up, and still sees Ruby there.

"I'm already in one," Ruby mutters as she leaves the room, not knowing that Blacker and Froghorn overheard. Not seeing the look they gave each other as she left.

"We have to do something," Blacker says as he gets up.

Froghorn shakes his head, "I know you feel like that-"

"No, Miles, you don't know. I understand, you two are being slightly more civil towards each other after the Eye incident, but I was close to her from the beginning. Besides, being rude isn't my nature. I can't do it, and not regret it like crazy."

"I know, James, I know. Just because we aren't as close doesn't me that I enjoy doing it. No one does."

"Then why are we?!"

"Because if we don't, then this will keep happening. We've been over this how many times?"

"It doesn't matter how many times we've been over this, or why we're doing it. It's still wrong. I wish we didn't have to, or there was some way around treating her so terribly."

"Maybe there is," Froghorn starts. "Don't give me that look James. I might be on to something here. If we never see Ruby, then we can't treat her horribly. We just have to convince Hitch not to bring her in for the next week, and everything should be fine. It'll be easy to convince him of that too, since he's hating everyone including himself for letting Ruby be here right now."

"Miles, if this works, you're a genius. We have to find Hitch right now," Blacker says, as he starts to run out of the room.

Froghorn rolls his eyes, and follows a lot less enthusiastically. If Blacker had waited a couple of seconds before running out, he would have told him that one of them should have waited while the other went to get Hitch in case LB came by for an update on the case.

They talk it over with Hitch, and he leaps at the opportunity to not have to take Ruby back. Whether she would believe it or not, he could see what this was doing to her. And, he just got a call from the school. They were concerned because her grades had suddenly dropped, and she was starting to fall asleep in classes.

He had brought it up with LB, and that was as pointless as he had thought it would be. He winces even thinking about that memory, and the dressing down she gave him.

"Honestly, Hitch, I don't see why you care so much. You loved the hazing part with all the other new recruits. Why are you so upset that Ruby has to go through it?"

"Because I can see how it's destroying her!"

"Calm down. You don't like the consequences of your actions hitting you in the face. Most people don't; that doesn't make you special Hitch. It makes you normal. I will not be reconsidering my decision on this matter. I believe that this was once an essential part of new agents training, therefore Redfort will go through it. Dismissed."

That was the first time in nearly four years that LB had verbally told him that he dismissed, the last time also involving Ruby. Furthermore, her tone was one that was usually reserved for some poor agent who had done something incredibly stupid and was about to find themselves fired. Completely emotionless and professional. She hadn't even bothered to look up from the paperwork that she was filling out and making Ruby file, after she was done getting Blacker and Froghorn coffee.

Speaking of LB, she had caught wind of their plan. She waited until Hitch agreed, as she knew he would, and then called him into her office. "You're trying to keep Redfort from here to avoid her being hazed," She states.

"Of course I am. This is destroying her! I just got a call, and it's getting to her. Her grades are dropping because she has no time for school work, she's late to class because she's required to run over here during her lunch break, and she's falling asleep in class for some reason that I'm sure we can blame on this. How can you not see that this is harming her?!"

"I can see that this is harming her Hitch. Just like it caused Froghorn to have a breakdown. Just like it caused Blacker to quiet being a codebreaker, and turn into field agent only. Just like it caused Bradley to take stupid risks when he was a preteen. Just like it caused you to lash out at the world. Just like it made me bottle every emotion inside. It harms everyone. Now, maybe, you'll stop insisting that we do it to other agents, now that you can see hands on how it's harming people."

Hitch's jaw starts to twitch, but he doesn't argue. Honestly, he doesn't know if he can even say a word without crossing lines that would get him in boiling hot water.

"I'm glad you can see this now. So, as seeing it's Saturday, Redfort can have a small reprieve. From Monday to Wednesday, she doesn't have to report in. She will be missing Thursday and Friday from school, I do believe the flu is going around. During those days, she will be making up for the time that she missed, being here at five in the morning and not leaving until ten at night. Do I make myself clear?"

"Crystal," Hitch grits out as he dismisses himself. It's better than punching LB in the face.

Another stipulation, and unspoken one, is that he can't tell Ruby about besides that she won't be needed. That also means that he can't stay at the Redfort's. Spectrum has cots for agents to crash on if they stay late working on cases. They're the most uncomfortable things in the world, and it looks like he's going to be having neck problems for the next week.

It'll be worth it though. To give Ruby a small reprieve, time to gather herself before the worst of it. Those last days are the worst for anyone, much less with her having to be at Spectrum 24/7 during them.

Ruby flops in the car, completely exhausted. Only one more week, is all that's been drumming in her head all day. Now, she's too tired to think anything, or even keep her eyes open. School work will just have to wait until tomorrow morning, if it gets done at all. Right now all that she needs is sleep, and maybe some bruise cream.

The newest set of recruits can pack a punch, and Kip told her that her needed her help training them. He neglected to tell her that it was fight training, and that she would be the one always getting the poor end of the deal.

"You OK, kid?" Hitch asks, concerned. Sure, Ruby has been slightly subdued lately, but she's never been like this.

"Perfectly fine. I just can't wait for this week to be over with," Ruby says, struggling to find her 'everything is fine' voice.

"You and me both, kid. I can't wait to get my sidekick back," Hitch jokes, looking over and furrowing his brows when he doesn't see a glimmer of a smile on Ruby's face.

A couple of seconds pass, and neither says anything. Hitch is waiting for Ruby's snappy retort back, and Ruby doesn't have it in her to say anything back. Besides, Hitch must have some important news to tell her. Why would he be talking to her otherwise?

"So, you don't have to come in until Thursday. We have some important things going on right now, and can't afford for our best code breaker to get hurt. However, this means that you will have to come in all day Thursday through next Sunday to make up for the lost time."

Ruby simply nods, not having the energy to feel relief for the reprieve, or ask what hours all day consists of. She hopes she won't be required to sleep at Spectrum, that would never work out.

"Also, I won't be staying at the house. I'll be busy working," Hitch says, closely watching Ruby for the explosion he wishes would come.

It doesn't. Ruby blinks back tears for who knows what time this week. Of course. I'm useless right now. Of course he wouldn't want to be around me. Not when something important is going on in Spectrum, and when I'm being thrown out for good.

That has to be exactly what this is. LB realized how useless I am and is throwing me out for good. I didn't even get a chance to say goodbye to anyone, either.

Who is there to say goodbye to? They all betrayed you. They've treated you like trash for the last three weeks. Why should I feel any remorse about never seeing them again?

As soon as she gets home, Ruby repeats her system for the last several days. Grabbing two pieces of toast, and taking them to her room. While the bath is filling with water, she scarfs them down, and washes it down with both a glass of water and banana milk. Then, she takes a nice, long, hot bath. After that she dries off, and instead of frantically doing her homework, cries herself to sleep.

She's normal now. No more Spectrum. No more Hitch. She's abandoned her friends so many times that she probably can't count on them either. She's all alone now.

She goes through the next three days like that. She doesn't bring attention to herself, and finds hanging out with her friends so awkward. She was so absent these past three weeks, and it's hard to make up for lost time.

Just as she's starting to get a hang for being around people again on Wednesday, she messes up again.

"Rube, be a dear and get me some sugar from the booth over there," Del says pointing halfway across the Double Donut.

Even though Del is on the outside, and Ruby is on the inside, Ruby gets up and starts to make her way out to go get the sugar. It's a complete instinct at this point. Following orders no matter how stupid or nonsense they seem.

And, when she gets back, everyone is staring at her. She can feel what they're all thinking, about how weird she is. It makes her skin itch, and for her to want to run out the diner. And yet, she sits down, and they all pretend that the incident didn't happen.

She tries to eat her French Toast. She really does. However, it looks like the worst thing in the world. She'd take one of Froghorn's liverwort sandwiches over it. Actually, that's a lie. She would rather not eat anything. Everything seems disgusting right now.

She gets home, and immediately goes to her room to get school work done. It feels so weird to have free time before dinner. It feels so weird to have free time.

Ruby heads down for dinner, and her parents gush over her, saying how they haven't seen her in forever. They haven't. No one has, besides all the agents at Spectrum.

After dinner, Hitch shows his face. "Be ready to leave at 4:50 tomorrow," Hitch whispers as she trudges to the living room. It's trivia night tonight, and while she doesn't feel like watching it, Ruby knows it'll soothe her nerves.

"Is there anything special I need to wear?" Ruby asks, and Hitch shakes his head.

A plain T-shirt of course. LB had ruled out most of her closet with a single order. A plain blue shirt, and some blue jeans. That sounds like a decent idea tomorrow. Not that people will see her. She might be there, but to everyone she's invisible.

She decides against trivia night, optioning to sleep instead. It's going to be an early morning.

Just after her head hit the pillow, the stupid cuckoo alarm clock was singing it's stupid pleasant song. Ruby trudges out of bed, throws on her clothes and jacket, and slips out the window to Hitch's waiting car.

They arrive at Spectrum, and Ruby heads straight over to the cold case room. That's where she's spent most of her time. At six, when Walter gets in, she meets him with a cup of coffee, two sugars, and is instructed to start answering phones.

That goes on until Blacker and Froghorn arrive. Off to the coding room she goes, coffees in hand. From there on, her time is split filing for LB, cleaning up for Blacker and Froghorn, answering phones for Walter, and fetching coffee for everyone.

Then, Hank has to grab her for some help painting things, and she goes. It should surprise her that she looks at the clock and sees that it's one. However, Ruby isn't hungry, and decides to just skip lunch. Helping Hank has delayed her list, and now she has less time to solve the cold case she's supposed to have done before Hitch picks her up tonight.

She works until four, when Kip goes and grabs her for another lesson. This time, it's fighting while inabilde, such as with a bullet wound or your hands tied.

This is somehow more brutal than the other one when they were sparring all the time. Maybe because she feels weak from not eating anything all day. Now that she thinks about, Ruby can't remember drinking anything either. Maybe, if she has time, she'll grab a glass of water from the cafeteria when she goes to get Blacker and Froghorn some more coffee.

As with all good plans, it fails. She never makes it to the cafeteria. Kip lets her go around seven, and she heads that way. However, in the purple sector, starts to get dizzy. Like, really dizzy.

Then, her vision goes away. Everything is all black, but it's a spinning black. By this point, Ruby is holding onto the wall for support. She doesn't like whatever this is. It's making her feel too weak, and is awful.

However, just as quickly as it came upon her, it passes. She hurries to the caferteria, however doesn't have time to grab a cup of water or she'd be late, and since it's seven, she also has to give LB her tea, black tea of course. That she can't be late for in the least.

So, she runs off delivering coffee and tea to what feels like everyone in Spectrum. It probably is, or at least everyone staying insanely late. It's eight already, and counting. Ruby doesn't know how long she has to figure out the case, but knows that it can't be long.

However, before she can run back to the room, Walter says that he has to leave early so she has to to take over the phones. Ruby feels her hope sinking, and for a second, tries to explain what's going on.

"Walter, please-"

"No. The rules of the hazing are that you have to do whatever we say. I'm saying that I need to leave right now, so you're going to take over the phones. What are you, useless?"

And those last words were the ones it took to get Ruby to sigh, admit defeat, and climb into the booth. It's in that booth that Hitch finds her, and simply shakes his head.

"Come on kid. You can finish the case tomorrow, I guess. I do hope that answering the phones was more important than solving the case and giving families justice and closure," He says, and Ruby can read inbetween the lines. She can tell that Hitch also thinks she's useless.

By the time they get home, everyone is asleep. And, for some reason, Ruby still isn't hungry. She tries to make herself eat, but can only take a couple of bites of a sandwich before she starts to gag and gives it to Bug. She grabs a glass of water, and heads to her room.

As if he knows she would need him tonight, Bug follows her up to bed, and licks the salty tears off of her face, causing Ruby to cry even more.

The alarm clock goes off to early, and Ruby sighs, kicks Bug out of bed, and starts the day all over again. It follows an eerily similar pattern.

Coffee, cold case, filing, delivering papers to the coding room, and then helping Kip with the recruits. Back to sparring again.

The whole day she's felt off, and slightly dizzy and woozy. Like how people describe being drunk. As she steps onto the sparring mat, the feelings multiple ten-fold, but she ignores them. Her first mistake.

All it took was one blow. One blow she didn't see coming because she went in the dark like before. One blow that she should have easily dodged, but that made connection with her stomach, hard.

That one blow had her down on the floor, throwing up stomach acid. There was nothing to speak of the throw up.

Before she can stand up and insist on continuing to spar, Hitch is by her side, with Dr. Harper on the other.

"You're going to be fine, Ruby. We're going to get you to my office, and then we're going to figure out what caused this. And don't say a blow to the stomach; you don't get this week from a blow to the stomach." Harper fusses.

Ruby keeps her mouth shut and allows them to carry her away. They arrive at Harper's office to find that LB was already in there, along with Blacker and surprisingly enough, Froghorn.

"Alright, how long ago did you eat?" Harper questions after she listened to Ruby breath and her heart rate.

"Um, last night," Ruby says in a very quiet voice, keeping her eyes on her sneaker.

"And I'm assuming that you didn't eat all yesterday except last night," Harper says, really not wanting to be right.

Ruby just nods, eyes still glued on her yellow sneakers. They're all scuffed up, she realizes.

"Why?" Hitch questions, and Ruby flinches at the anger in his tone.

"There wasn't enough time. Anytime that I would be about to go get food, someone would need something and steal me away. I'm not allowed to tell them no, and when I got done, I had to work on the cold cases, and I wasn't hungry at that point in time." Ruby admits, and Hitch feels as if he's been punched in the stomach.

He gave Ruby the cold cases to keep her mind occupied. To give her something to do that was like what she normally would. To give her a sense of normality, and happiness. Instead, he had given her stress and anxiety.

"And why would you allow yourself to be pushed this hard?" LB questions, her voice softer than normal. For some reason, seeing the kid hurt brought out any motherly instincts she might have had once upon a time.

"I couldn't be useless. Besides, I have to get through this to be an agent. At least I was actually doing something important most of the time, helping out in some way. I couldn't let anyone down, could I?" Ruby asks, and it's as if all the air has been sucked out of the room for everyone.

As much as they'd like to think they were guilt free, everyone in the room minus Harper was all equally to blame for the state Ruby was in a that moment.

"Not another case," Harper says, her voice harder than anyone had ever heard. "I will not have another agent coming into my office hurt because of this hazing. There will not be another case of it, do I make myself clear."

LB looks at her, and doesn't hesitate. "Crystal. I will send out the memo tonight saying such. Froghorn, Blacker, get back to work. Hitch, as soon as she's cleared, take the kid home. Don't bring her back until she's better."

Harper released Ruby almost immediately, claiming that she needed to drink plenty of water and eat something and she should be fine. The car ride home was excruciating, and never ending, or so it seemed.

Hitch got her home, and ignored the dietary action that Mrs. Digby suggested he take cooking her fish. Instead, he made steak with french fries and plenty of ketchup, with four glasses of water on the side.

Since her parents were gone, and it was bingo night, Ruby was eating alone. Well, Hitch was sitting at the table with her, but he wouldn't even look at her. He was just staring at the table harshly, as if it had killed his grandmother.

"Kid, don't do that again," He says as Ruby puts her dishes in the sink.

"Do what? Go through hazing?" Ruby asks, and Hitch shakes his head.

"Prioritize the work over your health. I'm not kidding either. You do it again and I will have you bench before you can say 'Let me explain.' You don't take risks with your health, not like this. Our job is dangerous enough when you're perfectly healthy, much less when you're starving and dehydrating yourself."

"I understand. I won't do it again," Ruby says to placate him.

And she doesn't. Not intentionally at least.

However, she does things for the next year that makes everyone flinch or cringe when she does them. They're simple things too. Following rules too easily. Fetching them things instead of telling them to do it themselves as she would have before. Hesitating before raiding the snack drawer. Spending time working on cold cases even when she isn't told to. Always offering to help out.

No one knows if it's just Ruby trying to be helpful, or if she was truly affected by the hazing that much. It's a bit of both, if we're being honest. The hazing did affect her. It made her more likely to follow blind orders, though it wan't too hard to do that considering how she was before.

Her little secret was what Harper told her after checking her out to clear her for duty. "Ruby, if you don't mind, please follow orders every now and then for me. Hazing is still so stuck on everyone's mind that they need a reminder of what can happen if it gets out of hand. You're the perfect person to deliver that reminder. Will you do it for me?"

What can she say? Ruby knew she would make a perfect messenger. Everyone in Spectrum agreed, as no one was hazed ever again.

So, this was supposed to be a short oneshot. It's over seven thousand words, and I am currently working on Froghorn's hazing story, followed by Blacker's, Hitch's, LB's, and Bradley's. So, I hope you enjoyed it because a lot more of them are coming!