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Jess was sitting at her ADD, running the most recent diagnostics of her systems that Connor had given her. She was pleasantly minding her own business, humming under her breath when Lester threw his door open.
“Miss Parker, if you would please come into my office for a moment.” He ordered, sounding rather flustered. It wasn’t unusual for Lester to use that tone when asking Jess to go to his office; it usually meant that he had done something to his computer he hadn’t meant to and couldn’t fix it. She hopped from the raised platform her chair was on and smoothed down her skirt.
Becker, who was sitting at one of the computer terminals nearby, leaned toward Jess as she passed and murmured. “Have fun with that, Jess. He seems like he’s in a lovely mood.”
Jess froze for a second. It was one of only a handful of times that he had actively attempted a conversation with her in the past few weeks. Ever since it was discovered he was seeing a woman, Laura, from the science department.
Jess had been supportive but distant when she found out. Well, she had been after a night of crying into ice-cream and watching horror movies; but the next day she had come into the ARC and had started to actively curb her feelings for the Captain. She continued to smile and say the same parting words of ‘stay safe’ when Becker and the team went to an anomaly sight. She was the utmost professional and colleague, just not really as friendly to him anymore. It was better that way.
She had always thought, hoped, that when Becker was ready to date and had gotten through his aversion to getting close to people just in case he lost them, he may ask her; but that hadn’t happened, and she refused to be the stereotypical heartbroken girl. Because she wasn’t, she was a strong and intelligent young woman who wouldn’t have her worth lessened by an unrequited crush.
It didn’t help that she kept getting pained looks from Emily and Abby; or that Connor and Matt had taken to scowling whenever Becker spoke to them. Even Lester was shorter in temper when speaking with the Captain, if that were even possible. She appreciated their support but she really didn’t need it. Jess had realised a while ago that Becker didn’t reciprocate her level of feelings and this was the push she needed to start getting over him; oh, she knew he cared about her but it was never anything more than that of, a sort of, friend and teammate. Maybe at times there were hints of more, but not enough for Becker to take the chance. So Jess smiled politely and replied.
“Oh, please, he’s a teddy bear. He’s just been on the phone with the Minister all morning, you know how he gets. Too much politicking makes him grumpy.” Jess stage whispered as she made her way to the stairs leading to Lester’s office.
“Yeah a teddy bear with claws, when he’s like this.” Becker said peering up at the see through wall where Lester could be seen pacing and talking to himself. He sounded uncharacteristically uncertain almost nervous and it bothered Jess.
She knew that he felt out of his depth when it came how to treat her, now he was in a relationship, but she decided to ignore it and try and be as unaffected as possible; letting him figure out how he wanted to proceed in their interactions. And it was working; her feelings whilst still present weren’t nearly as strong now the possibility of a relationship was off the table. It was strangely liberating not being the one fumbling for their words for once. And she definitely didn’t miss the tell tale blush he was known to give her.
“Then I guess it’s a very good thing that I have an entire complex of people to protect me. Isn’t it your job to deal with things with claws? Just have your EMD on standby and await my signal.” Jess joked halfway up the stairs, hoping to lessen the awkward tension.
“Go to your meeting, Jessica.” Becker said turning back to his computer, but not before she saw the smile he was trying to hide. Glad that she had managed to hold a conversation that, finally, hadn’t ended on an uncomfortable note, Jess climbed the rest of the stairs. She knocked politely and opened the door when she heard a muffled ‘come in’ from the other side.
“What have you done to my network this time, Lester?” Jess asked, a little amusement entering her voice. But anything amusing she may have found about the situation left her, when Lester turned to Jess with an almost pained expression lingering beneath his scowl.
“Please, take a seat, Jess.” Lester asked as he made his way around his desk and took his own. Leaning forward, he made steeples of his fingers and bought them to his chin. “as you know I had a phone meeting with the Minister this morning.” Jess nodded.
“Even if I hadn’t of been the one to put it into your calendar, which,” Jess said pointing a finger in the air “You do have an actual PA to do that for you, and she’s going to start feeling neglected if you continue coming to me for admin support.” Jess lowered her hand back to her lap and continued “your mood would have given away that you’d had to deal with the Minister.” Lester narrowed his eyes at her.
“My mood?” He asked slowly, obviously not happy about the observation.
“Yes, your mood. You get...blustery.” Jess informed him and had to bite back a smile at the, not at all pleased, glare she was receiving. He shook his head and released a very put upon sigh.
“My ‘mood’ not being the point of this conversation; I would very much like to get back to what I was saying. And in regards to my PA: you’re better at her job than she is.” He said with a hint of disregard to the feelings of his PA, that Jess was pretty sure he didn’t know the name of. “as I was saying, the Minister and I had a very important issue to discuss; and one that I have been attempting to quash, but he is annoyingly determined.” Lester finished with what Jess would definitely characterize as a pout.
“What issue, Lester?” she asked when he was silent for a little too long.
“You, Jess. You’re the issue up for discussion.” Lester intoned, gravely. Jess started and felt her heart speed up.
Why would the Minister be discussing her with Lester? She hadn’t done anything wrong, not that she was aware of anyway. And why did Lester look so troubled? Was the Minister making him fire her?
“Miss parker? Jess?” Lester clicked his fingers in the air and got Jess’ attention back and out of her own spiral of scary thoughts along with how she was going to be scolding him later for clicking at her like she was a dog. “I was hoping to say why you were up for discussion before that genius brain of yours went wherever it just did.” He said pushing a glass of water towards her. Lester sighed and leaned back in his chair, waiting for Jess to finish her swallow before continuing.
“Why am I an issue to the Minister? I wasn’t even aware he knew my name.” Jess asked as she placed the glass on the coaster atop the desk. Lester laughed without humour and Jess frowned. She didn’t enjoy a bitter Lester.
“He knows more than your name, Jess. The Minister has requested your reassignment to a training facility; location not disclosed; time away ranging from six months to a year; where you would be expected to teach the latest Field coordinators in training how to deal with the issues presented by anomalies. He believes; as we all do, that you are the best in your profession. And having spoken to your supervising officers, read all the reports from the ARC and the teams assessments of your abilities he thinks that you are exactly who is needed. He wants all future FC’s to be mini Jess Parkers, it would seem.”Lester finished with a slight twist of his lips that Jess read as pride, sadness and a little horror at the prospect.
“And you’ve been trying to keep me at the ARC. How long have you been trying to ‘quash’ this Lester?” Jess asked softly. She was heartened to hear that she wasn’t being fired but she couldn’t say that she relished the prospect of being forced to leave the ARC for that long a time, even if it was a fantastic opportunity. She had always planned to train others, but that was much further down the line, when she was nearer retirement age than in her early twenties.
“Three months.” Lester admitted, looking slightly sheepish at the admission. Jess smiled and received an eye roll in return, for the sentiment. It was no secret that he liked the young woman but she did get a warm feeling in her heart whenever it was confirmed, even begrudgingly.
“So, what’s changed? Why am I being told now?” she asked, confused as to why she was being let into the fold when Lester clearly was still fighting tooth and nail to keep her.
“The Minister has requested a conversation with you. In about ten minutes. He has made it perfectly clear that if I continued to block access to you he would force the issue and have you reassigned anyway.” The annoyance and disdain in his voice was clear. “I didn’t want that to happen and asked to have a chance to forewarn you.” Jess sighed. Getting a feeling of this being a full gone conclusion settling over her like Eeyore’s ‘little black rain cloud’.
“It doesn’t really sound like I have a choice, does it? I mean, if you haven’t managed to scare him off in three months and they haven’t found anyone better; it looks like I’m going to ‘location not disclosed’.” Jess felt a slight burn of tears in her eyes and blinked it away.
She refused to cry and she refused to give in. Not until it was made official, she wasn’t going to give up the hope that she would be made to leave her friends and the job she loved.
“Unless you can convince him that you are of more value here?” Lester shook his head slightly “Which I have tried to do, stating the fore most anomaly experts needed the fore most expert to guide them, but he was unmoved. This phone call is just a formality and your reassignment papers will be here by the afternoon.” Lester admitted. There was no frustration anymore, just resignation and sadness. “I’m very sorry, Jess.” Jess shook her head and pouted.
“No, Lester, you have nothing to be sorry about. You tried your hardest and were overruled by the man in charge. I truly appreciate your efforts to keep me.” Jess smiled slightly in encouragement “Why don’t we get this conversation over with.” Lester nodded, gave her one last indecipherable look and began to dial the phone for the Minister.
Jess gave herself a moment to compose herself. She wasn’t just going to accept the reassignment; she would fight her case, but she knew that if Lester wasn’t able to talk someone around, she had no chance.
So Jess Parker silently reconciled herself with, the soon to be, fact that she was leaving. Temperary
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
“Where’s Jess?” Connor asked Becker as he stood by her computers, turning in circles as if he’d missed her on his first turn or she was hiding behind his back. Becker sighed in response to the terseness of his tone.
“Hello, to you to Connor.” When he just received an unimpressed look in response, he sighed again. “She’s up with Lester.” He said; throwing a concerned gaze up to the office where he could see Jess and his boss talking into the phone, which was obviously on speaker. “Been there a while, too. He seems...more agitated, than usual.”
Connor merely nodded his response and looked to the see through walls himself and frowned slightly. He was about to leave without any more acknowledgement to Becker’s presence when Becker called out to him. “How long is the mono-syllabic thing going to carry on for Temple? It’s been weeks.”
Connor turned to the Captain slowly and stared at him for a moment before saying “until I can figure out when you sustained your obvious head injury that made you think it was a nice thing to do, letting Jess find out you were dating someone from the ARC, by showing up with the woman at a team get together. Until I can wrap my head around that one, mate, we have problems. Not so much that I’ll let a dinosaur get you, but enough that you should know that I don’t like you very much, right now.”
Becker ground his teeth tightly, his jaw ticking as he met Connor’s disapproving glare. He had felt bad about that, but he had never been good at talking about his feelings and the thought of seeing the hurt look on Jess’ face when he told her about Laura made his gut clench. What he hadn’t expected was it to hurt just as much, if not worse, when he could feel her start pulling away from him after she’d found out.
“Jess and I are fine, Connor.” Becker told him. And it was true, sort of. Their work hadn’t suffered and she was still pleasant it just wasn’t the same. Connor scoffed and rolled his eyes.
“Yeah, Jess is fine. More than fine; in fact.” Connor met Becker’s eyes, with a coldness Becker wasn’t used to receiving from him and he carried on, “She seems to have finally realised she’s much too good a person to be wasting her time on you.” Becker narrowed his eyes but before he could reply he heard a voice behind him.
“Con.” Abby scolded as she walked into the hub. “We told Jess we’d leave it.” She completely bypassed Becker and strode to her husband. Connor’s face softened when he looked at her but hardened when he glanced back to the Captain.
“No, you said that; I said that I wouldn’t open an anomaly to throw him into. Besides,” he said with a shrug. “He bought it up.” Abby looked back to Becker and tilted her head.
“Don’t talk to us about Jess, Becker. We all think what you did was awful and hurtful.” She crossed her arms over her chest and gave him a frosty look. Becker sighed and shook his head. He hated that his team thought poorly of him but he knew that he deserved it; even if it was his personal business.
“I think you’ve all made that perfectly clear; what with the one word answers and death stares I’ve been levelled with. Not to mention Lester’s insistence that my bi-monthly security reports become bi-weekly.” Connor laughed at the last one. Lester had seemed to take great glee in handing him the deadlines for his paperwork in front of Jess and the team. Jess had just grimaced and looked away. Abby just shrugged her shoulders, face still frosty.
“You’re our friend, Becker, and we love you.” She looked him in the eye and squinted. “But you did a bad thing. And it hurt someone else we love; someone who is too nice a person to say anything because you’re happy.” Abby smiled slightly, “don’t get me wrong; we’re glad that you’ve found someone, but you went about letting us know all wrong.” With that she took Connor’s hand and led him out of the room.
It had been the first time anyone had explicitly mentioned anything about what had happened and he wasn’t surprised they had it wrong.
Becker let his chin fall to his chest and his eyes close. Happy. The team thought he was happy. In a way he was, but that had more to do with the willingness to be open to a relationship again than the one he was actually in. He didn’t want to be misunderstood; Laura was a lovely person, smart, funny, kind and beautiful; she just wasn’t who he actually wanted.
Becker could have laughed if he didn’t find the entire situation so FUBAR. Laura had asked him out one day, after he had done a security check on her lab, and he had surprised himself by saying yes. He had regretted it almost as soon as he had left the science department but he didn’t have the heart to go and take it back. Everything had spiralled after that.
A month and a handful of ok dates later, Laura had heard about the team trip to the pub on a Saturday night, after a particularly gruelling week of anomalies and said that as she hadn’t seen him it would be to spend time together and meet his friends all in one go, outside of work. He hadn’t actually said yes but she had taken his silence for acceptance.
His team had all been pleasant when he introduced everyone but he could feel the undercurrent of how unimpressed they were. Jess had just looked crushed before she schooled her features to a welcoming smile for Laura .Their smiles and laughs were forced; and as soon as Jess had let out a slight yawn Matt and Emily had jumped at the opportunity to take her home, as they lived the closest to her. It wasn’t even 10. Abby and Connor had left not half an hour later, with quick, cold goodbyes. He had taken Laura back to hers and left her with a kiss on the cheek.
And that was pretty much the extent of their relationship; dinner, conversation that centred on the ARC and a small kiss. It was all very middle school. He kept meaning to end it, not only in the hopes that his relationship with the team would go back to normal, but because he felt like he was using Laura; Like she had been a tester date, to see if he were even capable of romantic entanglements anymore. It’s not like he didn’t have the urge to go further than a kiss, the urge just wasn’t to do it with her.
And that was by far his biggest problem. The disastrous, barely a relationship had only reinforced what he already knew but had suppressed. He wanted Jess. He wanted her so much it hurt and now he scarcely had her at all. And he missed her.
He missed how he no longer felt her gaze on him until he was out of view when he was off to another anomaly and he could practically feel her worry. She was still concerned for his safety but now it felt more procedural than emotional. The way her smile was no longer warm and wide, when he came back to ops and gave her his black box, rather it was distracted and vaguely dismissive. Her responses to questions he posed no longer led to rambles and endearing blushes; they were short, professional and to the point. And he missed her. He missed what they used to have and more importantly what they could have had.
He’d pushed her away by making a spur of the moment, short sighted decision. He’d pushed her away and she’d kept going. Maybe Connor had been right; Jess could well have cut her losses and completely left him in the dust.
And that was why he hadn’t ended things, like he should have, already and told Jess of his feelings. What right did he have to play with jess’ feelings like that? How could he silently shut down any and all possible progression of their relationship and then change his mind when she seemed to be getting over him.
He was also afraid. Funny that he could face down future predators and dinosaurs but the mere thought of admitting his feelings had him silent and stagnant. Laura was a safe option; had all the right qualities for a good relationship but with none of the feelings. That way if he messed up he wouldn’t get hurt. Not like if he messed up with Jess; he was sure if he did embark on a relationship with her and it ended badly, no doubt through something idiotic on his end, it would destroy him.
Not that he was much better off now. He was in a relationship with the wrong woman and the right woman seemingly wanted nothing to do with him outside the confines of work.
Shaking himself of his maudlin thoughts he turned to go back to his work when Lester called down from his office.
“Captain, if you could assemble the team and have you all come to my office, right away.” Becker didn’t even have the time to reply when Lester had returned to his office.
Staring after him, Becker frowned when he saw his boss giving Jess, what appeared to be, a comforting shoulder squeeze and she gave him a small, tremulous smile in response. Lester was not known for being tactile let alone nice and consoling and it had Becker on edge, knowing that Jess was upset enough to garner sympathy from their boss.
Touching his earpiece, he went about contacting his team for their impromptu meeting. All the while feeling a sense of dread the likes of which he got when he headed off to an incursion.