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11
We Were A Family
Mimi
Jackdidn'temergefromhis bedroom the next day, and he didn't send a message to say why. I hadn't expected everything to return to normal immediately, but I had hoped for there to be some change to our circumstances now that Jack had access to the Academy's systems.
My nerves were shot, and it didn't help that RATS had finally caught onto the interesting tidbit that I had spent the night in Bryan Fawkes' bedroom. The walk of shame wasn't so much a single shuffle down the corridor first thing in the morning as a recurring nightmare throughout a very long and very anxious day.
I eventually took myself off to our scheduled secret meeting that afternoon in the Technical Division, keeping my head down and my hair hanging over my face. I could hear the whispered comments as I passed, that couldn't be called whispers, really. I saw the shaking heads from the corner of my eye, the pointed glares that drilled holes into my back. Jack was well respected at RATS as he should be. And apparently, I was the first woman he had openly dated since he'd started working here.
I might as well have been wearing a scarlet letter around my neck.
When I entered the meeting room, after offering up the required sequence of knocks, I came face to face with Dean and Sally. Rafe and Bryan hadn't made it yet.
"Hey," I said in greeting.
Sally said nothing. Dead offered a cautious, "Hey, Mouse."
"Any news?"
"You tell us," Dean ventured.
"Might as well wait until Rafe and Bryan get here," I said, throwing myself in a seat and failing spectacularly, it must be said, to gauge the tension in the room, right then. "No point repeating ourselves," I offered.
"If that's the way you want to play it," Dean said. "Gotta say, though, thought you wouldn't want an audience for this."
"What are you talking about?" I asked, all innocence.
Dean stared at me for a moment and then shrugged his shoulders as if he couldn't be bothered explaining.
"Sally, what's he talking about?" I tried.
"Did you have a good night, Mouse?" Sally asked.
"A hairy one," I muttered, remembering hanging off Winchester's window frame while he did private things inside his bedroom. "And an illuminating one," I added, shaking my head.
"So glad you had fun," Sally said in a tone of voice I had never heard sweet Sal use before. It was almost sarcastic.
I looked at Sally and then at Dean and then slapped a palm to my forehead.
"Fawkes," I said.
"Yeah, how about that, huh?" Dean offered, crossing his arms over his chest and glaring at me. I could almost feel his righteous fury on Sally's behalf. It was ironic, really, because Dean would give anything to have Sally fall in love with him, and here he was angry because he thought I'd stolen the object of Sally's love.
"ThisBryan is notyourBryan, Sal," I murmured, which in retrospect was the stupidest thing I could have said to my friend.
"Strange how that's meant to change things, isn't it?" Sally said. In other words, for Sally, it didn't.
But she thought for me, it did.
"It's not how it looks," I said, which, again, was a really stupid thing to say.It's not how it looksis one of those sentences guilty people cling to when trying to explain away a sin they've committed.
Dean huffed out a disgruntled breath of air. "Thought you were Sal's friend, Mimi." Mimi, not Mouse.
That hurt.
"And I thought you were mine," I snapped back; Hyde raring her head without warning. They bristled, but I didn't give them a chance to say anything. You had to nip these things in the bud before they became a monstrous tree, hellbent on decapitating you with a sweep of a branch. "I used the excuse to spend the night in Fawkes' room to gain access to the Surgeons' floor, and then climbed out his window and along the very precarious window ledges, past Winchester's bedroom — which was a sight I never want to have to witness again, might I add — and into Jack's room. Jack and I then spent the next hour or two treating his wounds, bringing him up to speed, and getting him back into RATS' computer system so he could wreak some havoc. The wreaking of havoc is yet to materialise, but I have faith in Jack and I'm willing to give him a bit more time. After that, I scaled Shadowship's façade again, risking limb and life, not to mention my innocent eyes as I passed Winchester's bedroom again, and climbed back into Fawkes' room. Because it would have looked suspicious to the guard if I left too early, I fell asleep in Fawkes' armchair while he slept alone, fully clothed, on his bed. He did offer the bed to me, but I didn't feel comfortable sleeping there. I have a crick in my neck, my fingertips are still tender from hanging onto the windowsills and I've been subjected to every accusatory glare and overly loud whispered opinion of the entire staff on duty today. I came to this meeting thinking at leastmy friendswouldn't treat me like some sort of leper. But clearly, they don't know me at all."
