Fixing A
Mistake
by Setcheti
Disclaimer:
Don’t own them, and Mog created the ATF AU.
Angela’s January 2003 Challenge:
Write a story in which one (or more) of the guys horses goes missing. (If you
are using an AU in which there are no horses go ahead and use the mode of
transportation used)
Buck heard the faint
wheezing sound of the elevator coming up and hesitated on his way back to his
desk, wondering if it was Ezra. A quick
glance at his watch told him that it was still a bit early for the undercover
agent to be getting in, but he thought he’d hang around just a bit longer to be
sure; he’d been very careful all week to make sure he was the first person Ezra
saw every morning when he came in, just as a reminder, and although today was
really the last day it would be necessary Buck thought he might just keep it up
through the following week as well. If
he admitted it to himself, he was kind of getting a charge out of unsettling
the self-contained Southerner and had found that it made for a very nice start
to his day. Of course it didn’t do Ezra’s day any good, but those were the breaks.
Buck was just musing to
himself that maybe that was why Chris always chewed Ezra out first thing in the
morning when the elevator doors he was loitering in front of slid open. A heavyset, tough-looking man in biker
leathers came out of the elevator instead of the expected Armani-clad
undercover agent, though. “What kind of
game are we playin’ here,
Buck froze. “Isn’t it…”
He shot a look back and his roommate’s cubicle, seeing with dismay that
JD had turned away from his computer to watch.
This was a complication he hadn’t planned for. “It’s right there in the garage,” he told the
man in a low voice. “Right
where I told you.”
“No, it ain’t.” The man looked like he wanted to spit, but he
didn’t. “Now I don’t know what you’re up
to, but either there’s a bike here to trade or there ain’t – and from where I’m
standin’ there ain’t.”
“What do you mean, a bike to trade?”
JD had left his desk and was advancing on the two men with a suspicious,
disbelieving look on his face. “You’re
not talking about a Yamaha scooter?”
“That’s the one,” the
biker confirmed. He raised an
eyebrow. “You know somethin’
about it?”
“I know it should be in
the garage…because it’s my bike,” JD
snapped. “Now explain to me what you
mean by ‘trade’, I’m not getting rid of my bike.”
The biker snorted. “That’s not what your buddy here says,
kid. Got it all set up, title and
everything, to get you somethin’ bigger and a little
tougher than that city bike of yours.”
“What do you mean, title
and everything?” Vin
had left his desk too, and he thumped on Chris’ door as he passed it to draw
the team leader out. “JD, did you sign
over your title?”
“No, I didn’t.” The younger agent spat angrily, glaring up at
his roommate. “I wouldn’t have.”
“Didn’t figure you
would,” Vin told him.
“So that means that someone else did, which wasn’t quite legal the last
time I checked. Just what kind of game
are you playin’ here, Buck?”
“It’s not a piece of
crap, it’s a good bike!” JD interrupted.
“Not everyone wants to ride a big heavy Harley, Buck!”
Buck was starting to get
mad as well. “You’d be better off…”
“This isn’t about me,
this is about you,” JD insisted. “You
had no right to try to do something like this.”
“He’s right, you
didn’t.” Chris was standing in the
doorway of his office, and he didn’t look happy. “Mister, you have that title on you?”
“Right here.” The biker fished in the pocket of his leather
vest and pulled out the folded title, holding it out. He was starting to look worried. “Hey, I thought it was a little weird but I
wasn’t tryin’ to do anything illegal. He told me the kid needed a new bike and it
was gonna be a surprise.”
“Oh yeah, it would have
been a surprise all right.” Chris took
the title, unfolded it and looked it over; he scowled, then
turned his attention back to the biker.
“Do you have a business card or something you could leave with me? I don’t think we’ll need to contact you about
this, but just in case…”
The man jerked his thumb
in Buck’s direction, although he didn’t look at him. “He’s got my number.”
“Good enough for
me. Sorry about the mixup,
we’ll handle it from here.” The biker
grunted and left, muttering, and once the elevator doors had closed on him the
full force of the Larabee glare descended on Buck. “You mind explaining to me just what the hell
you thought you were doing?” Chris demanded, shaking the title at the other
man. “You wanted to surprise JD so you
decided to commit a felony?”
“I was just tryin’ to…”
“You don’t mess with a
man’s ride,” Vin told him flatly, blue eyes hard. “You just don’t do it.”
“And now I’d like to
know what you did with it,” JD demanded.
“That guy seemed to think it wasn’t in the garage, so where is it?”
Buck raised his hands
defensively. “Now I didn’t touch that
sorry excuse for a bike, never laid a hand on it…”
“No, you were just
planning to have it hauled off.” JD
practically spat the words at his roommate.
“I’m going down there to check it out and it had better be where I left
it or I’m calling the cops.” He stomped
out of the office, taking the fire stairs because he didn’t want to wait for
the elevator, and the last thing he heard before the door closed behind him was
Chris ordering Buck into his office.
JD all but jumped down
the first four flights, only slowing up as he got closer to the garage level
and anger began to be balanced out by apprehension. He stood in front of the final door for a
full minute before pushing it open, walking out into the garage and taking a
look around. He felt like his heart had
just fallen right down into his stomach when he saw that his parking space was
empty. He was so upset that he didn’t
even register the presence of someone else beside him until a hand came down on
his shoulder. “JD?” a worried Southern
voice inquired softly. “It’s all right.”
“He took my bike,
Ez.” JD could feel tears welling up in
his eyes and blinked to keep them back.
“He took my bike.”
“He tried to.” Something in Ezra’s voice brought the younger
agent’s head up with a snap, and he saw that Ezra looked almost as upset as he
felt. “I took it to stop him, but I did
not get it put back in time to avoid causing you distress. I am sorry.”
“You took it?” JD tried to add that up in his head, but it
refused to come out to anything. “You
took it…so Buck couldn’t?” At Ezra’s nod
he frowned. “Why didn’t you just tell
me?”
The Southern agent hung
his head. “I had hoped you would not
have to know. I had tried to talk Mr.
Wilmington out of his plan but he refused to listen to me; to his mind he was
protecting you, safeguarding you from something he considered dangerous, and so
I could not make him see the betrayal inherent in what he was doing.”
JD’s frown
deepened. He knew Ezra wasn’t lying to
him, but he had the feeling that he wasn’t hearing the whole story,
either. “And what did he say?”
“He insisted that you
would come to see things from his point of view and…warned me not to
interfere,” Ezra responded quietly, his green eyes growing even more
worried. “I would appreciate it, Mr.
Dunne, if you did not mention my involvement.”
“I won’t.” And he wouldn’t – yet, anyway. JD wanted to know what his overprotective
roommate had threatened the undercover agent with, but he knew better than to
ask Ezra a question like that and expect an answer. He grinned at his friend and was pleased to
see some of the strained lines melt away from the Southerner’s face. “Okay, so where did you hide it?”
Ezra grinned back
wickedly. “In the back
of Mr. Larabee’s truck, of course.
Now if you would care to help me put it back where it belongs
you will then be able to return to the office and announce that your vehicle is
right where you left it and none will be the wiser.”
JD laughed and slapped
his friend on the shoulder. “I’m glad
you’re on my side, Ezra.”
Upstairs, Larabee had
ordered Buck into his office and closed the door, shutting out the rest of the
team. Vin shortly thereafter disappeared
into the break room and didn’t come back out, and when Nathan came in to get a
bottle of water from the refrigerator he found the sharpshooter leaning against
the wall the room shared with Larabee’s office with a glass pressed to his
ear. “Hey, stop that!” the chemist
ordered. “What they’re discussin’ in there is private…”
“It shouldn’t be,” was Vin’s grim reply. He
was scowling. “What Buck tried to do was
wrong, and I’m pretty sure you can see that even though you don’t much like JD’s
motorcycle either.”
“I don’t like any of
them, Buck’s kind or JD’s,” Nathan admitted.
“But it’s their choice to ride them and they do pollute less than a car,
use less gas and oil too. But Chris knows
what Buck did was wrong, that’s why he’s in there chewin’
him out and that ain’t no business of ours.”
“It sure is, we’re a
team,” Vin shot back.
“Besides, I get the feelin’ that there’s
something else goin’ on here and I want to know if
I’m right – ‘cause if I am we’ve got us a bigger
problem than that fool tryin’ to steal JD’s
bike. Ain’t you noticed that ol’ Bucklin’s been pickin’ on Ez
a bit more than usual lately? And that
Ez ain’t hardly been sayin’
two words to anybody?”
Nathan hadn’t noticed a
change in Buck’s behavior, but he had to admit he’d noticed a difference in
Ezra’s. “Thought maybe he was comin’ down with something, or maybe he had somethin’ on his mind.
You think he was in on this?”
“No.” The sharpshooter shot him a disgusted
look. “I think maybe he found out and
tried to put a stop to what was goin’ on and somethin’ happened between him and Buck, that’s what I
think. Because out of everyone here the
one person who knows how it is to have someone ‘replace’ their ride is Ezra,
that’s what started half those damn rumors about him at the FBI in the first
place was that mother of his stealin’ his car and leavin’ the Jag in its place. Now shush up, I want to hear this.”
The chemist stopped
talking, more out of shock than anything else.
He hadn’t considered the parallels between Ezra’s situation and JD’s,
but now that Vin had mentioned it he realized that
Ezra would never in a million years have gone along with a plan like
Buck’s. As a matter of fact, he would
have sworn that the undercover agent would have told everyone what Buck was up
to…but Vin said that the ladies’ man had been picking on Ezra a bit more than
usual and even he had noticed that Ezra had withdrawn a bit from the rest of
them, so that would have to mean that Buck had found a way to keep Ezra from
talking. Nathan grimaced, no wonder Vin was eavesdropping; this wasn’t just something between
Buck and JD, this was something ugly that could affect the whole team.
A few minutes ticked by,
and Nathan was warned by the look of utter sickened shock that flooded Vin’s
face and the way he jerked away from the wall just before Larabee’s bellow made
eavesdropping unnecessary. “YOU DID
WHAT?!”
“That son of a bitch,” Vin whispered, dropping onto the couch. He looked up at Nathan. “Ez tried to talk him out of it, said if Buck
didn’t reconsider that he was gonna have to tell JD
and maybe even Chris. And Buck told
him…” Vin
swallowed hard. “Buck told Ezra that if
he said anything he’d tell us that it was all Ezra’s idea, that he’d helped set
it up with all those dirty connections of his.
And he told him that if he thought any of us would believe his word over
Buck’s then he was a damn fool.” He ran
a shaking hand through his hair. “Oh
shit, Nate, I can’t believe he’d do somethin’ like
that.”
Nathan felt even more
sickened than Vin…because he knew that Buck probably
would have been right about who would have been believed. The sharpshooter would most likely have taken
Ezra’s side, but Nathan wasn’t sure anyone else would have right at first. “I can’t believe it either, just don’t seem
like him.” He thought about it for a
minute. “You think maybe he was drunk? You know how Buck can spout off when he’s had
a few too many, Chris bitches about it all the time.”
“He could have been, I
guess,” Vin said, but his expression hardened instead
of softening. “But that still ain’t no excuse.”
“No, I know it ain’t,
just thought it might explain how it got started.” Nathan continued on his original mission to
the refrigerator and fished out his water before turning back to Vin. “I guess it’s
all taken care of now, though. I mean,
he told Chris and you heard what happened, it’s all settled.”
“Not so sure about
that.” The sharpshooter peeled himself
up off the sagging couch and put the glass back in the sink where he’d found
it. “But I guess we’ll see, won’t we? Won’t be too much longer before Ez gets in,
he’s probably at Starbuck’s right now getting’ his coffee.”
It was about twenty
minutes later that the elevator announced another new arrival. The office was quiet,
everyone at their desks and at least pretending to work, and even Larabee’s
bellow from his now-open office door was fairly subdued. “Standish, what time is it?!”
“My usual time of
arrival,” the undercover agent replied, completely unruffled. He sipped his cappuccino and smiled in at
Chris. “And good mornin’ to you too.
Allow me to divest myself of my accoutrements and then I’ll bring you
the information you were requestin’ earlier this week.”
Chris snorted and waved
him off, and Ezra continued on to his desk with his smile still in place. It was turning out to be a very good morning
for him. No yelling from his boss aside
from their regular morning exchange, Buck hadn’t met him right out of the
elevator…and JD hadn’t lost his motorcycle.
Yes, a very good morning indeed.
He hadn’t been sure if any of his teammates would tell him about the
morning’s goings on, but he supposed that eventually some of them would discuss
the motorcycle incident amongst themselves and he could fill in the blanks that
way.
But, much to his
surprise, they didn’t. His meeting with
Larabee passed with no mention of it, and what little conversation was going on
in the main office was happening in whispers and with a lot of disgusted looks
being shot in…his direction? Ezra’s stomach tied itself in a knot when he
realized what must have happened, but he forced himself to finish the report he’d
been working on before lunch rolled around and then took a printed-out copy to
Larabee’s office. The man didn’t even
look up when he dropped it off, which only confirmed his suspicion as to what
had happened. The Southerner’s sigh was
almost inaudible. “Mr. Larabee, I find I
am not feeling at all well. I believe I
shall go home.”
Chris grunted
affirmatively in reply, intent on his own paperwork, and Ezra slipped back out
without another word. The office was
still unnaturally quiet, but he could feel eyes on him as he cleared his desk,
turned off his computer and then put on his coat. He kept his own eyes down, not wanting any
confrontations, but he hadn’t gone five steps from his desk when Vin’s angry voice behind him shouted, “God dammit!”
Ezra jumped when the
sharpshooter’s hand closed on his upper arm in a tight grip. “Mr. Tanner, I…I’m goin’
home, I don’t feel well…”
“You’re gonna feel a lot better in a minute,” Vin
growled – and Ezra suddenly realized that the anger snapping in the other man’s
blue eyes wasn’t directed at him. He
allowed himself to be dragged back to Larabee’s office, where Vin pounded on the open door with his fist. “Larabee, you chicken shit son of a
bitch! Are you gonna
do your job or am I gonna do it for you?”
Chris looked up from his
papers with a scowl. “I’ll do it when I’m…” Then his eyes fell on Ezra and he did a
double take; the scowl faded down into a grimace. “Oh shit.”
“My thoughts exactly,” Vin spat. “Why the
hell didn’t you tell him before? He was
in here almost thirty minutes.”
“It’s not exactly
something that’s easy to bring up,” Larabee shot back. “I didn’t notice any of you talking either,
so there.”
“Because you said you’d
handle it and for us to stay out of it.”
Vin wasn’t cutting him any slack. He shifted his grip on Ezra’s arm. “Stop wigglin’ –
and if you try what I know you’re thinkin’ about I’ll
just tackle you so don’t even bother.”
Ezra stopped trying to ease
his way out of Vin’s hold but not without a last look
in the direction of the fire stairs.
Chris sighed and shook his head. “Dammit. Ezra, Buck
told me what happened.”
“I’m sure he did,” the
undercover agent said, the faintest shade of his normal sarcasm coloring his
voice. “The silence and the pointed
looks these gentlemen were exchanging spoke volumes. May I go now?”
“Buck told me what he
said to you,” Chris corrected him sharply. “Vin’s right, I should have settled it this
morning when you came in. And I’m sorry
I didn’t pay more attention to the way he was hounding you, I should have put a
stop to it.”
“No apology is necessary,
Mr. Larabee,” was the controlled reply. “You
were not the one who threatened me, and as I did not realize there was anything
to be ‘settled’ you were under no obligation to bring the matter up with me
within any particular time frame.”
Vin
scowled. “Ez, Buck had no right to
threaten you, he shouldn’t have said those things.”
Ezra shrugged. “He only spoke the truth, and I have heard
that one need never apologize for doing that.”
“If he had been he
wouldn’t need to – and we all wouldn’t be so pissed at him,” Chris shot back. “Get your coats, boys, we’re going to lunch. We’re going to hash this out someplace
comfortable.” Chris turned his glare on
his oldest friend, who was still sitting at his desk. “Buck’s buying.”
“You’ll start now,”
Chris snapped back. “And while we’re all
at lunch we’re also gonna talk about ways you can
make things up to JD, too.”
“But I...” Buck stood up, looking embarrassed. “I think that should be between me and the
kid, Chris…”
“Then you shouldn’t have
tried to pull it off under the whole team’s nose right here on federal
property.” Larabee wasn’t cutting him
any slack. “And even if you hadn’t, you
dragged the rest of us in with you when you used us to threaten Ezra. Just be glad Travis isn’t here, he would have
suspended you. Now get your coat and
make sure you’ve got your credit card, I feel like steak.”
Buck still looked like
he wanted to argue, but to his surprise Nathan grabbed his arm and began
pulling him toward the elevator. “They’re
right, you’ve been wrong all day,” the chemist told him flatly, but there was a
wealth of sympathy in his brown eyes and the mustached agent relaxed a
little. “It ain’t gonna
be easy, Buck, but we’re family and family works things out.”
Buck’s eyes widened…and
then he almost smiled. No, it wouldn’t
be easy…but it would be worth it being hard, he was sure of that. He would go with them, let them rake him over
the coals, and he would fix his mistake.