One

Opening the door was the very last thing I wanted to do. I tripped over and danced between discarded bottles and the remnants of last night's casual mysteries in my last attempt to stop the incessant banging and knocking rattling the old, frayed wood. The light from the early afternoon sun blinded me momentarily and I lifted my hand to shield my eyes.

"Agent Ryan, excellent to see your personal situation has improved so drastically since you went on sabbatical," Jack Crawford pushed past me and made his way into the motel room that had turned from temporary accommodation to my very long term living quarters. I took note of the way his eyes met with the presence of discarded clothes and the gentleness of his movement as his toes kicked at the empty bottles.

"Please, come in, make yourself at home, why not," I grumbled with as much sarcasm as I could muster the energy to deliver.

"What's going on with you? You haven't been returning my calls, you've been MIA for almost three months, you disappeared half way through a case. I understand if it was all getting a little too much for you…but this isn't the way to deal with things. Don't you want to get to the bottom of all this?" Jack questioned as he sat himself down, the sofa creaking beneath him.

"How did you find me?" I asked casually, grabbing a bottle of water from the fridge of gulping it down, the cool liquid almost painful as it travelled down my sore, dry throat.

"I looked," Jack replied bluntly, "It's not as if you hid your whereabouts exceptionally well."

"Then what took you so long?"

He paused at my question, sighing and pinching with his thumb and forefinger between his eyes, "I wanted to give you a chance to come back on your own terms."

I laughed, immediately regretting the false confidence it portrayed.

"I killed someone, Jack," I sat down on the bed opposite the sofa and stared towards the floor.

"You didn't have another choice, Grace. It's a part of our job – it was you or him."

"But there's a part of me that knew that I didn't have to do it, I didn't have to kill him. I could have got out of that situation without killing anyone, if I'd just taken the time to use my head…if I hadn't so scared, so weak but most importantly if your team had done what they promised they would do. Protect me," I knew that I was rambling, all of the conflict that had been rolling around in my mind was now being spoken out loud. A part of that was a relief, yet still my breath was short, my chest achy and my hands quivering.

"You did not have another choice. You did not," Jack repeated, standing and making his way over to me. I glanced up to see him holding a brown folder out towards me.
"What is that?" I asked, taking the paper package warily.

"It's the case file for the Kasapin Auteur ," Jack stated somewhat nonchalantly, my eyes shot up to meet his and I frowned.

"There's two things that bother me about this, one, they should have thought of a better name and two…I don't need to read about him, I know everything there is to know about Thaddeus Brimley," I threw the file to the side and stood up.
"Are you finished or do you want me to go through every tiny, little detail as to why I'm not coming back to work for the FBI?"

"If you read the case file, you'd see that we didn't have a choice, just like you didn't have a choice."

I made a pot of tea, resisting the urge to touch the burning mettle of the teapot as I poured two cups. The sky outside was still bright, late afternoon was approaching but the brilliant glow of the winter sun was still beaming in through the dirtied net curtains. I placed a cup of tea in front of Jack and hovered aimlessly.

"I don't understand why you didn't intervene, I don't understand why you didn't burst through the door and grab him when you had the chance," I was shaking my head and staring down towards the ground as I spoke, yet I could feel Jack's eyes on me.

"You know it's wasn't as simple as that," He replied.

"But it was that simple, I was in there…injured, vulnerable. A one way video connection was nothing to me, Jack, I was there alone with Thaddeus for two weeks…you watched everything the whole time. So why was it that when you finally figured out the location of my whereabouts…you hung around for another two days? Explain that to me, because I'm dying to know."

Jack's face was the picture of sincerity, with just the tiniest pinch of sympathy.

"According to our profile, you weren't going to come to any harm…and we needed to know the location of the other girls. I made a promise to one of the parents, you know that…I had to find her daughter, I know you…I thought you could handle it and I was certain you weren't in any immediate danger." I scoffed, slamming the tea cup down on the table.

"In any immediate danger? Have you seen what I look like, Jack? Have you even looked the photos in that file? This entire case ruined my career, my life!"

Jack covered his mouth and shook his head, he rubbed his eyes closed, as if he were doing anything he could to save himself the trouble of looking in my eyes.

"Can you just tell me why you're here?" I asked quietly. There was a long pause as I waited for Jack to speak, I could feel the haze that anger offered quickly disappearing as I began to feel more and more embarrassed about my outburst.

"Will Graham's back."