When I got to base, no one was there. Or I thought, until I spotted The Godfather busily typing away on the computer.

I did a quick sweep of the room, instantly disappointed when I didn't meet the green of the Sergeant's eyes. I didn't find Slash, or Duff, or anyone really, just a leaky faucet, and extremely stained microwave and a sagging couch.

I stood on tiptoes and peeked over The Godfather's shoulder. He was attempting to hack something, his fingers were moving faster than my mind could. "What're you doing there?" He didn't seemed surprised by me, not in the least. "Oh, hey. You're early. If I were you, I'd-" I reached over him to the keyboard, squinting at the screen, and trying the hack my way.

A minute or two later, the database he was trying to access was completely unlocked, and he peered up at me with an unreadable expression. "As I was saying, If I were you, I would-"

Just then the door swung open, and lead by the Sergeant the rest of the guys filed into the room. I couldn't help it, I felt my body light up as he set eyes on me. I have no idea what I was expecting, some sort of warm greeting? I don't know, but I certainly got the opposite. While everyone else gave me an informal wink, a nod, or even an affectionate squeeze on the shoulder-Steven was like that- the Sergeant's eyes were colder than ever.

They were worse though, some how. They were so extremely guarded, I couldn't see the beauty in them anymore.

"What the fuck are you doing here?" He was a fuse, and it was obvious someone had already set fire to him prior to his arrival. It was a matter of time before he exploded, I was just unfortunate enough to be there when it happened.

"I..." "Did you hear me, Calliope? What the fuck makes you think you can just show the hell up?"

I heard The Godfather expel a heavy breath behind me. "I tried to warn you," he whispered so that I was the only one to hear. I wished desperately that I'd let him finish his sentence earlier.

"I don't know, I was bored so I just-"

"Do I look like I give a flying fuck if you're bored?" He spat at me, like I was nothing more than a beetle to squash beneath the heel of his boot. He was a knife- a surgical scalpel, if you will. It only took one stroke of his rhetoric for him to cut me deeply. He was right, I was extremely conscious and literal with everything anyone said to me, but maybe I was right to be hurt that time around.

"Hey man, lay off," The Godfather tried to chime in for me, but he was quickly silenced by one of the most frightening death glares I'd ever witnessed at that point in life. The Godfather shrank down into his chair, and said nothing more. I would've liked to melt down into the dusty vinyl floor and disappear.

"You come when you're wanted, you got that? You come when I need you to serve a purpose, but when I don't? Stay the hell out of my way, and mind your own damned business! I know you're shit at doing that, but could you at least give it a try? Go home to your pathetic life and watch your chick-flicks." He stormed past me, his shoulder painfully jarring me as he went. He threw open the nearest door and slammed it behind him, leaving me to stand there. I don't want to say 'devastated,' but I was certainly more than shocked.

I guess I wore my emotions on my sleeve, because when I looked down at The Godfather, his eyes screamed with remorse. "Callie-"

"I'm gonna go," I managed to whisper. I heard Steven call out to me, and it was all I could manage to ignore him, throwing open the metal door and shutting it behind me.

I felt tears stinging my eyelids, and I was angry with myself for them. I constantly felt that way since I joined this project, and that was the first occasion in which I felt the tiniest bit overwhelmed. Then I was even angrier, for being so emotionally naive. He was the Sergeant, I knew he was the rudest man I'd ever encountered- not that I'd encountered many men- so did I suddenly expect him to love me, since he didn't snap at me for touching him?

With the most acute irritation I swiped the tears away from my eyes, storming down the street in no particular direction.

"Callie, hold up a second!" I stopped dead in my tracks and spun around as fast as I could, hoping to see the Sergeant. I felt like crying even more when I saw it was The Godfather again. I should've expected him, because he's nice, and pretty, and was never rude to me.

I turned away again, placing my head in my hands. "Godfather, I-"

"Jon." He corrected gently, and placed a hand on my shoulder. "Look, what just happened down there was completely uncalled for, I hope you know I don't condone the way he is." I faced him again reluctantly, shooting nervous glances at the people who passed us on the sidewalk.

"But that is the way he is, though it may not be right. He's not always like that, to dudes, you know. He's extremely hard to get to know, and even harder to like, but..." I was just staring up at him while trying to dry my eyes, but his expression was so comforting it kept my tear ducts extremely active. "It's just that... with women, if you're not a whore he was nothing to appreciate from you, but that doesn't speak for me. I think you're-"

"I think he means 'us,' is what he's trying to say," Steven said, with Izzy in tow. "Yeah, Ax can be a real psycho sometimes when it comes to people, he's bipolar and he don't take his lithium," the black-haired man added, taking a swig from a can that radiated alcohol fumes. It was barely the afternoon.

"Really?" I sniffed, watching as Slash strutted up to us. "Yeah, he's... emotionally unstable."

Well, that explained the mood swings, but it didn't make me feel any better about what he said. To me a mental thing like that was similar to talking while drunk, or before one is fully awake: brutally truthful.

I wrung my hands, staring at Jon's cowboy boots. He began to wrap his arms around me and I screamed, like he was holding a bomb or something. His arms were limp in seconds. "What are you doing?" I sputtered, and he raised an eyebrow at me. "Trying to hug you?" I relaxed a bit, and stood there. "Oh, uh... sorry, I-" His embrace cut me off, and suddenly I was breathing in the scent of designer cologne and dry-cleaning soap.

He let go all too soon, giving a kind smile. I tried not to see it as sinsister this time.

"So yeah, moral of the story is... we don't hate you." Slash placed a large hand of his on top of my head, and Steven crushed me between his arms. I did not scream that time, I only laughed as he spun around in circles, making the both of us impossibly dizzy. Izzy was inebriated, so just watching us made him stagger around weirdly. Jon was still smiling at me, and I didn't wanna look away.

****

I didn't wanna go home after that, but I definitely didn't wanna face Cap. He'd probably interrogate me again about the way the guys spoke to me. So instead of returning home, I stole my courage and wandered the city. I spent hours out there on foot, just walking. It was dangerous, yes, but not nearly as lethal as Cap could be sometimes.

The Sergeant was right, I needed to stop being so sensitive, but at the same time I shouldn't have to take his crap, right? I was all over the place with my emotions, ready to break down in public until I remembered the way the rest of them were there for me, and Jon.

His words were echoing, bouncing around the inside of my head. Maybe I should've just gone home, 'Purple Rain' was going to be on MTV later. While I didn't relish The Kid and Apollonia the way I did Baby and Johnny Castle, it was still romance. Something I didn't have.

I swore I could hear him, screaming at me.

"Calliope!"

There he goes again, I said to myself, screwing my eyes shut. The sun had gone down hours prior, and sleep deprivation was already causing me hallucinations.

"Calliope, what the fuck are you doing?" I don't know, I wanted to respond. I wanted the voice to go away, but it was so loud... and so real.

"Calliope!"

"What?!" I yelled, spinning on my heel to face the imaginary voice. Only it wasn't imaginary, and the Sergeant's van was cruising down the street beside me. The window was rolled down and he was glaring at me through it, causing my stomach to bubble with fear. I took a few steps back after I realized I'd raised my voice at him, wondering what new torture he had in store for me.

"Get in the fucking car, what the hell are you standing there for?"

Okay, I was super confused now. Hours before he'd just told me to stay out of his way, and now... ? "Okay, if this is some test I fail, because-"

"Stop dicking around, come on!"

"Dicking... around? What does that mean?"

"Just get in the fucking car!" He snapped, and someone opened the sliding door on the side of the van. Sighing I did as he said, plopping down in the only empty seat. "You're fucking late, you're lucky I don't get rid of you altogether! What were you doing, wandering around like a lost fucking puppy?"

"No, I was-" "Just shut up, we've got some work to do." "But you asked, I-"

"Calliope!"

I sat back and covered my face with my hands, willing myself not to take it to heart. He's emotionally dumb, Callie. He doesn't mean it, he's just a bipolar maniac, Callie.

It didn't work very well.

When I found the strength to uncover my eyes, Jon was there, across from me. He gave me a reassuring nod, and I smiled back, immediately dropping it when I saw the Sergeant watching me in the rearview mirror.

I was mentally preparing myself for another period of time spent beside him in the passenger's seat. This time I would actually keep my trap shut, and even if he tried to engage me in conversation, I wouldn't. It would definitely be most beneficial to me if I forgot I ever felt any sort of emotion toward him, he certainly didn't feel them toward me if he had emotions at all.

The van stopped abruptly and the engine shut off. "Fuck this shit, I don't feel like waiting tonight. I'll get fucking arrested for all I care." And so they all got out of the car, leaving me to scramble after them in a panic. He couldn't get caught by the guards, the outcome would be terrible... he'd... I'd never get to find Jess.

I knew what Cap would do to them if they were ever caught. There was no chance that he'd be lucky enough to end up in county jail, no. The local deputy would ship the six of them right off to the CIA, and let Cap and the 'intense interrogation' team do the rest of the work.

"Wait, don't!" I hissed, stealing after them in the dark. "I don't have time for your shit right now, Calliope," the Sergeant snapped back at me as we came up to the door. He pointed to the keypad, "Let us in now."

"No, you have to come up with a different plan."

Jon's eyes were saucers as he stared at me, shaking his head quickly. "Callie, don't. I would strongly advise that you just open up the door," he said carefully with both hands extended out before him. That afternoon replayed itself in my mind for the umpteenth time, yet for some reason I decided to make the same mistake twice.

"You have no idea what will happen to you if you get caught stealing the files! It's worth it to draw the guards away, trust me." I paused, waiting for the explosion. The Sergeant remained silent, glowering at me.

"They'll ship you right to the CIA, and I've seen what they do to prisoners of interest! Unless you want your fingernails pried off by a Middle-Eastern man with a rusty pair of pliers, I would wait for Duff to draw them away before we go in." I tried to use my eyes to plead the way I used to when I was a girl, but it obviously didn't work.

"Fuck it, I'll do it myself." He brushed me aside and began to fiddle with the keypad, cursing to himself when he couldn't get it open.

I gripped his forearm tightly with both hands and his head snapped to the side. His eyes averted to my hands on his arm, and then back up to my eyes. "Fine." He growled, and several gasps issued from behind us. Steven began whispering emphatically to Izzy about something I couldn't hear, but I wasn't paying attention, I was trying to piece together the enigma that was the Sergeant.

"Shut your damn mouths," he snapped at the two of them, while I shyly glanced at Jon. He too seemed surprised, staring at my hands on the Sergeant.

"Open the door." I quickly withdrew my hands as he motioned to the keypad with his free arm. He didn't tear it away from me, and it was the first thing I noticed. I hated myself for it.

It was extremely hard to stick to the promise I made to myself while sitting there in the van with him, wringing my hands until it hurt to do so, wrapping ringlets of hair around my fingers, biting the inside of my lip. He was looking at me so plainly, never bothering to look away when I was brave enough to steal a glance back at him.

I never wanted to hear Duff's voice over that radio so badly in my life.

"You... you are just a... a piece of fuckin' work," he stated, and it took all of me to keep my eyes glued to the Judiciary building. "You're probabaly the most prying... annoying little shit of a female I've ever met. You refuse to mind your own business, you won't keep your hands to yourself-" I was blushing madly when he said this, "I don't understand why the hell you even come back after what I... the point is that-"

"Please, do me a favor and spare me? I know that you don't like me very much, and you keep finding new ways to show me. Sorry for being oblivious for so long, but I've got it now. You don't have to... do whatever this is anymore." I figured that if I was going to break my pact, it might as well have served me some good.

"God, Calliope," he spat, as if my name was a curse.

"You wanna know something about me? I know you do, don't you? I wasn't born into a happy-go-lucky family like you were, I didn't have Daddy to buy me whatever my heart desired! I had a crap father who put his job before me, always. I never had a fucking childhood! This is what it's been, twenty-four seven, since I was a kid! I never had a break, I never got to watch 'Dirty Dancing' or 'Sixteen Candles' or... I never got to be a spoiled brat like you, with nothing better to do than butt in where she doesn't belong!"

I considered this for a while, and I believed it. I read a lot about his father from the files I hijacked, he must've had quite the reputation to uphold.

"I wasn't born anywhere near here, but I miss Lafayette every fucking day! My shit father left my mother there and took me, I haven't seen her since I was eleven! So excuse me if I'm not a warm sort of a person, but I never learned that shit."

He leaned back against his seat, eyebrows forming two angry arches as he gazed out the windshield to avoid my eyes.

"I don't have a 'Daddy' either," I offered quietly, and he glanced back over at me. "I haven't seen my parents since I was seven. They could be dead, they could be alive. I don't get to know. Cap is all I have, and I couldn't leave him even if I wanted to. I wish I had something better to do than watch my 'chick-flicks,' but it's becoming increasingly obvious that you don't want me here."

His breathing was audible all of a sudden, his gaze was locked on mine. For the first time, I couldn't look away.

"I don't hate you," he conceded reluctantly, grimacing. "I never said you did." I whispered, my heart in my throat.

"You're, just... frustrating, and confusing-" he groaned, just as Duff's voice came over the radio.

****

Cap was waiting for me when I snuck off of the elevator, thinking I was the slickest person in the world for skipping my CIA duties. I guess that marks the beginning of my dislike for being a double-agent, I was beginning to wish that my conversations with the Sergeant could be private.

I was genuinely tired, really. Silence is exhausting, which is exactly what commenced after the Sergeant and I left the van. I wanted to know what he was getting ready to say when Duff interrupted, and I didn't at the same time. It was probably another insult, my mind said, but a feeling in my gut told me otherwise.

He gave a smile, holding out his arms to me. "I thought you might be extra tired, after what I heard yesterday." I swallowed hard and held his gaze. I couldn't show a single sign of weakness, it would be giving him a reason to take me off of the case. "I am, but not because of that." I'd been sleep deprived in general.

"I'd like to go to bed now, if that's alright with you?"

"Not quite yet," he said, leading me over to the sofa by the hand. We both sat and he looked at me seriously, before placing the palm of his hand against my cheek. It was cool and reassuring, it made me want to crawl into his lap to sleep, though I hadn't done that since I was nine.

"You've been distant for the last few weeks since you've started," he whispered, letting his hand come to rest on my knee. "I've known you since I was little more than a teen, and you were the tiniest little babe, sucking on her own toes." He smiled at the memory for a second, meeting my eyes again. "I am genuinely worried for you. That Sergeant abuses you in more ways than one."

I don't know why my first instinct was to defend him, but I did. "He's got... problems." I left it at that, I didn't have much more to spill that he hadn't heard already.

"You're my girl," he said sofltly, though I never got the sensation that his words carried a double meaning, the way I should've. "I think about you all the time, I always have, but now... I'm dealing with three times the stress, knowing that you're spending time out there-" he motioned to the windows, "where someone could recognize you, or hurt you. I wonder what would happen if you were somehow compromised in the field, what would that Sergeant do you then?"

I drew a quiet breath, giving a small smile. "I can handle myself, I promise. You shouldn't worry about me, Cap. I'm learning pretty fast, don't you agree?"

I noticed that I was uncomfortable with my sitting position, but it was the same way I'd been sitting my entire life with Cap. My back was up straight, my shoulders were square. I had a million voices in my head telling me to act like a lady, and for once- I really noticed them.

"Yes, you've always been a fast learner," he sighed, running a hand over his already perfect hair.

"So you have no need to worry." I promised him, and went to stand. He wouldn't allow me too, drawing me nearer to him.

"I always will." He was slow and deliberate as he placed another kiss against my cheek, but this was different somehow. He didn't draw back immediatley, instead he lingered. I felt his breath against my face, I felt his lips brush against my skin again. "Cap?"

He was on his feet in seconds, and stiffly walking toward the elevator. "Rest well, dear."

~fin~