Special Agent | ✓

Thirty-Eight

a/n i mean i had to drop this .. the one you were all waiting for. enjoy

THIRTY-EIGHT

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Quinn knew she was wrong. That sunk in, like a hard stone dropping into her conscience, while she was eating some of the soup Kat had made. It had nothing to do with the soup itself — it was some ridiculously healthy concoction Kat usually had for dinner during dance season — but rather the fact that wallowing on her own opened things up for her.

Her stubborn refusal to see what Kat spoke of was rooted in something that had gone awry for her a long, long time ago. Quinn tried working on it, she really did, but sometimes she needed someone to help her see sense. Usually she could deal better with it if someone shocked her out of it rather than having a frank discussion.

Sort of like Locke did when you locked up seeing Lorber's body.

Quinn shoved that out of her head. For all she knew he'd taken his time off to find a way to let the Agency put a bullet in her forehead quicker. And that thought — that thought hurt.

Kat's practice didn't end until until nine, though Quinn knew the last half hour was just Kat going off on her own to repeat some of the movements. She could probably get to the dance studio and find her on her own, apologizing on her knees to the dear friend she now knew she'd disrespected.

Quinn knew she had to apologize, and she refused to sit around and wait when it was her who was in the wrong from the start. Reaching for her phone, Quinn fired off a text:

You were right. I'm sorry. Can we talk?

Tipping her head back, Quinn reached up to massage the tension building in her skull. It was all stress and anxiety, completely natural reactions to what she was going through, but knowing what they were and why they were there had nothing to do with helping her get through it. She'd always processed such things through work, and now she was forced to see the truth in what Kat was saying.

Surprising Quinn, the phone buzzed seconds later. A message from Kat appeared on the smartphone's screen.

Of course. Recital ended early, I'm home soon :)

The smiley told Quinn that at least some of her apology had dissuaded the tension. Heading for the door, Quinn reached for one of Kat's old coats and shrugged it on. She could at least meet Kat out by the doorway to the building, and use the excuse that she'd stepped outside to toss the trash out.

Quinn re-routed past the kitchen, picking up the bag of trash, then went back to the front door. There was a set of spare keys in the bowl by the door which Quinn was quick to pick up, slipping them into her pocket. Reaching for her phone, she put it in her other pocket. She locked the door behind her quickly, taking the stairs down to the bottom floor.

Stopping for a moment, Quinn stared at the double doors marking the entrance from the street to the building. Steeling herself, Quinn drew a deep breath, then went over and stepped outside. A rush of fresh air filled her lungs, whipping her hair around her face.

A slight smile curved Quinn's lips. She stepped away from the entrance and onto the pavement, head shifting to assess whether or not there were a lot of people on the street. Only a small group lingered around the entrance to a building a good three dozen feet away, and so Quinn turned away from them and started toward the bend of Kat's building, hauling the trash with her.

It took roughly two seconds for her to toss it into the bin, before she turned back to exit the small alleyway beside Kat's building. Quinn started toward the exit to the alley, intending to head right back to the front of Kat's building and meet her. It only took fifteen minutes by car from her studio back to the apartment, so the timing would roughly check out.