Academy

Cat's Cradle

TW: violence, language, drug use

I met O'Malley in South Beach Park that afternoon. His orange curls fluttered in the ocean breeze like streamers as he unwrapped a burrito, offering me the other half. Karl was beginning to make his appearance as a thick sheet of condensation, but the Bay Bridge was still visible in the distance.

"Y'know, for someone who doesn't want to be seen as the 'teacher's pet', you sure have a funny way of showing it." His Bronx accent smacked, stirring up an unexpected wave of homesickness.

"Well after a few more weeks, that won't be a problem."

"That's right, you're at the halfway point." He nudged me good naturedly. "Have you given any thought to what Gil offered? You're going to have to have a little more training but..."

"I don't think my father cared for it too much."

"I bet." O'Malley snorted loudly. "I thought he was going to strangle me on the spot when I came to see you. Not that I can blame him - I more than deserve it."

"No you wouldn't. I'm fine, he knows it."

"In his eyes....like many of us, Red, you'll always be the little girl from the Falcon case. You may not be in the New York office anymore, but the people who know your story at HQ will try and shelter you." He chuckled to himself. "If you only knew the amount of flack I received from all sides, you would never have guessed this was a classified operation."

"News at ACME spreads like wildfire."

"Understatement." He wadded up the foil from his burrito into a ball. "But they're not wrong. I shouldn't have put you in that position so soon..."

"Sean, I promise you I'm okay. It happened a long time ago, I've had help working through it...and we've stopped others from experiencing the same thing. If I can spend my career doing that, then..." I trailed off, taking another bite.

My biological mother was married to the head of a now almost-defunct criminal organization called Falcon, who, among other things, had heavy dealings in human trafficking. It was said that after I was born, she began to have moral complications and wanted to leave him, but she knew too much so he refused. Driven to grief about our situation, she killed herself by throwing herself off a cliff and into the ocean. My biological father was not convinced that she was truly dead when they could not produce a body. He wanted a way to draw her out of hiding, and used me to do it, physically and sexually abusing me and circulating the evidence in ways that would reach her if she was still alive. The abuse worsened with time as he became more emboldened by her lack of response, but thankfully ACME intervened. I never dwelled on this experience if I could help it, but this past week, I found myself trying to place the memory of a certain Detective that picked me up off that basement floor.

O'Malley nodded. "Your case is also what got Gil into undercover. He never wanted another child to be hurt in that way if he could help it...."

"Seems like we have a lot in common then."

"It'd be a good match," he assented. "Even though I was hoping to keep you for myself."

"What do you need a partner for in the Academy?"

"I may or may not be returning to SpecOps full time." O'Malley answered slyly. "Anyway, enough about me. You said you had two things to talk about?"

I brought up the assignment, explaining to O'Malley my findings and my frustrations in not being able to push forward. At the end, he laughed heartily.

"What's so funny?" I demanded.

"You pushed this case further than it's been in years in a week's time. I will absolutely give you substantial credit for it. What more could you want?"