Field Work | ✎

Two

a/n: i finally feel like i have gotten back to writing, people. let's frickin' go !

Two

—————

Analyst Taahira Dayal felt awkward and out of place. It wasn't so much herself, or her surroundings, that made her feel this way.

No — it was the sharp-eyed Special Agent standing next to her, head bent over her papers as she scrutinized the last details of the mission files Taahira had spent the better part of the night preparing.

Sarraf straightened up, sweeping a dark strand of hair behind an ear adorned with cuffs of a brilliant gold.

"It'll do."

Dayal wanted to sink through her chair and down into the dusty archives of the Knightsbridge HQ, where she'd just morph into one with whatever mold was growing down there. Hours of work with painstaking detail generally amounted to little more than an 'it'll do' from the formidable Special Agent who Taahira now called her primary partner.

Primary partner. It still had a ring to it — the shiny finesse of a new title that'd meant a leap, to Taahira at the very least, through Agency rankings. She'd gone from poring over minor mission details with a drone of other Analysts to sitting in on the meetings where the top brass rubbed shoulders.

The first time she'd stepped into one of those meetings, she had almost toppled into a heap of bones and red-rimmed glasses right on the floor of the meeting room. The people in those rooms were all professionals — from the Special Agents to the Analysts, and the Chiefs who occasionally sat in to weigh in on especially important missions.

They were the true firepower behind the Agency's success. And now, now ... Taahira was a part of that firepower, a part of the upper echelon of workers who received the most difficult missions, the most work, the longest hours.

She loved every second of it — even if it only culminated in an 'it'll do' from the person she was expected to trust the most. She wouldn't hold the trust part against Sarraf, though, since the entire Agency was well aware of what'd transpired only months before between former Special Agent Kent and the current Chief of Analytics, Quinn O'Reilly.

"Really?" Taahira asked brightly, brown eyes positively sparkling at her mentor.

Well, mentor in theory, reluctant overseer in reality. Tomato, tomah-to.

Dayal generally considered herself to be an optimist, so she would do her best to keep it from getting her down. She was working her dream job, after all, even if one of the most revered Special Agents of the Agency didn't seem to think her new partner was anything extraordinary.

"I said it'll do," Sarraf said, returning the papers to their respective folders, "Now, get going. We have a mission briefing to get to."

Taahira blinked, eyes shooting to her brightly marked calendar which clearly noted that now was supposed to be the start of her long-awaited lunch hour.

Sarraf noted the brief look, scoffed, and turned on her heel to leave Taahira's office.

Office. My own office.

Taahira smiled dumbly, as she always did when she thought of it. Sarraf's lips pressed into a flat line as she noted her new primary partner smile into thin air.

Who in the hell did you give me as primary, O'Reilly? Maybe it was Tibble — probably the two of them in cahoots, trying to make me lose my bloody mind.