Honor Bound

"How's your headache?" Savard asked quietly.

Stark was leaning against the breakfast bar in the dining alcove, a radio transmitter in one hand and the telephone receiver in the other. She glanced across the room to where Savard sat at a small desk, her personal computer in her left hand.

"What headache?" Stark grunted, trying to carry on three conversations at once.

"The one you're pretending you don't have," Savard noted absently without looking up, punching information into her handheld.

"Feels like my eyeballs are going to fall out," Stark responded flatly.

"Thought so," Savard said off-handedly, making a note in her daily log. "You're going to need a CAT scan."

"Yeah, sure. Next month maybe." Stark was listening to Mac relay the status of the investigation in Central Park while juggling equipment and trying to jot notes. She'd gotten the all-clear call just a minute before. At least this location was felt to be secure and they could stay put for a while. She was glad because she thought she might vomit if she had to ride in the car again. She closed her radio transmission, simultaneously hung up the receiver, and crossed her arms over her chest, trying to stave off another wave of nausea. "Where's Doyle?"

Savard looked up in surprise, noting immediately that Stark's color was lousy. "Don't know. Haven't heard from him. I'm assuming he's going to want me to stay with the team, so all I'm trying to do is organize my field notes from today. We need to review the preliminary psych profile on this guy ASAP, too. I don't think anyone expected a bomb."

"That's an understatement, Agent Savard," Stark grumbled, her expression grim and beneath the anger in her tone, a hollow note of pain. "At least I hope no one did. Because if anybody had any idea of this and didn't tell us about it, there'll be hell to pay. We lost an agent today."

A sharp gasp from the doorway caused them both to turn quickly in that direction. Blair Powell, stood there, white as a sheet, and for a second, Stark thought she might fall.

"Are you all right, Ms. Powell?" Stark asked in genuine concern.

"Who?" Blair steadied herself with one hand on the back of a dining room chair and waited until she was quite sure her voice was steady. "You said you lost an agent," she heard herself say in a surprisingly calm voice that couldn't possibly be her own, because she was quite certain she was screaming. "Who?"

Stark looked uncomfortable and a little uncertain. "I'm sorry, that information - "

"Jeremy Finch," Renee Savard said immediately. She ignored the quick look of surprise and uncharacteristic anger from Stark, her gaze returning to Blair's face. "He was in the lead car."

"I'm sorry," Blair said softly. She recognized the quick rush of relief that accompanied the sound of his name, but she couldn't bring herself to feel guilty. This time it wasn't Cam. It wasn't Cam.

"There's no reason for you to be sorry," Stark said, gently now, too. "You are not responsible for what this maniac does. It has nothing to do with you."

Blair shook her head, appreciating Stark's kindness, but unable to accept it. "Itdoes have something to do with me. Agent Finch was assigned to me. His job was to protect me."

"It's still doesn't mean that what happened to him was your fault," Stark persisted.

Blair smiled, a sad smile. "That's a very fine distinction you're making, Agent Stark."

"It's the fine distinctions that make all the difference," Savard responded in a firm butcompassionate tone.

"I wish I could accept that," Blair said, almost to herself. She regarded them both and asked one last time, "Have you talked to Commander Roberts?"

"Not yet, ma'am," Stark answered, and Blair believed her.

"I'll be in the other room. Could you please let me know when you have more information?" She was more emotionally exhausted than physically tired. There was nothing she could do and she couldn't bear the conversation another moment. She knew that she wasn't a prisoner, but in many ways she felt like one. She didn't know where she was and she didn't know how long she would be there. She had no one to call, or at least no one she would be allowed to call. She assumed that her father had been informed that she was safe, and that his security chief and the director of the Secret Service and the FBI and all the other agencies entrusted with her protection would be doing whatever it was they did. She was the one player in all of this who apparently had no role to play. "And please advise me when I can call my father."

"Yes, ma'am," Stark said crisply.

When Blair left them, Stark looked at Savard in annoyance. "It's not exactly procedure to discuss classified information with her."

Savard regarded Stark thoughtfully, choosing her words carefully. She didn't know her all that well, and she knew the others on the team even less. "Can I speak to you off the record here?" she said, surprising Stark even more.

Stark glanced over her shoulder and saw that Grant was posted by the front entrance, and Blair was curled up on the couch staring blankly into space. They were alone. "I'm not going to report anything you say to me, Savard. I'm not the spy here."

Renee let that jibe go, appreciating that not only was Stark injured, she had lost a colleague. "I just meant that I have no desire to offend you by talking about your Commander."

As she expected, Stark's shoulders stiffened and the compact, dark-haired agent looked like she was ready to go to battle despite the fact that she seemed in danger of falling down at any second. It amazed Savard that every one of the Secret Service agents in Egret's detail was totally dedicated to their reserved, formidable Commander. She admired and respected the sentiment. "Blair Powell is in love with her."

Stark's mouth dropped open. It was some seconds before she managed to close it.

She still hadn't found her voice when Savard continued, "And I think the feeling is mutual."

Stark was silent, staring at the floor, trying to think, but her thoughts were racing in circles. She thought about the five days that Blair had spent in Diane Bleeker's apartment not quite two months before. She had been in the car that sat outside that apartment building for a large part of that week. She and everyone else knew that there was no way that Blair Powell was up there alone that entire time. They hadn't spoken of it, even amongst themselves, but she had wondered privately.

She was sitting there with a cold cup of coffee in her hand, staring up at the darkened windows in the oddly foreboding building, working hard not to wonder what was happening upstairs. She struggled not to replay the night she had ended up in Blair Powell's bed as a result of a very ill advised wave of pure, mindless lust. She had been so damn scared that night, and so damn nave, and so damn crazy for her - and Blair had been kind, if not tender. She recalled, blushing in the dark and hoping that Fielding couldn't see it, that tenderness had not been high on her list of requirements at that point, not when she had been frantic to get Blair's hands on her burning skin. She had never done anything like that before, and she hoped to God she never did again. She hadn't expected it, hadn't even considered it, but then she rarely thought about things like that. She thought about passing her firearms recertification, or her next shift assignment, or what she would have done ifshehad been the one to look up and see the sun glint off a rifle barrel pointed at the President's daughter.

She sipped the acid dregs in the mushy paper cup and remembered what it felt like to be touched the way Blair Powell had touched her. Even though she managed to put the memory from her mind most of the time, every now and then she would look at the President's daughter and remember her kiss. Then her blood would race and she'd long to feel that way again.

Stark realized that her mind was wandering down very inappropriate avenues and, ignoring her pounding headache and the faint disconcerting stirrings elsewhere, considered the facts. She knew the Commander was in town during those five days, because she has seen her briefly in a bar with Blair Powell. The timing certainly fit. It was more than that, though. It was a hundred little things that she had noticed since then but never quite 'seen'. It was the way they looked at each other, and the way they walked together - not touching, but connected just the same. Neither of them had been obvious, but when she considered everything as a whole, she thought that Savard might be right.

"How can you say that after only a week of being around them?" Stark asked somewhat argumentatively. It bothered her that the FBI agent had seen something she hadn't.

Savard smiled. "I know what women look like when they're in love."

Stark blushed and immediately cursed herself mentally for the reaction. It wasn't quite the answer she'd expected, and she hated the fact that her heart began to race in a very unprofessional manner. She was in the middle of a crisis situation and had responsibility for Egret's security until such time as Mac or the Commander arrived on scene, and here she was discussing something very improper with an FBI agent who might be reporting every word back to her dickhead of a superior. To make matters even worse, she was having very unprofessional thoughts about her FBI counterpart.

"Well," she began, and then stuttered to a stop when she realized that Savard was softly laughing. "What?" she asked belligerently.

"I apologize if I've upset you," Savard said, the lilt in her voice playful.

"I'm not upset," Stark said, definitely defensive now. She squared her shoulders and reached for the telephone. "I'm just busy, that's all."

Savard simply smiled again and returned to her report. She had been right about Stark the first day she had met her. She was cute.