F-Bombs

A response to the FB Fanfic challenge to start a story with "Happy Valentine's Day," muttered a disgruntled (character)". A small prequel story set in the Sundance AU. Not sure yet where I'm going with these two but maybe someday, we'll all find out together.

February 14, 1983

"Happy Valentine's Day," muttered a disgruntled Efraim Beaman, stalking out of his office at the FBI.

He walked out of the building onto E Street and turned towards towards 10th Street. When he got to the corner, he slowed, undecided about where he wanted to go in his current mood of frustration. Glancing north he could see the blocked sidewalk caused by the snaking line of tourists waiting to enter Ford's Theater and so with barely a pause, he turned left immediately and began to walk south. Crossing Constitution Avenue, he circled the Natural History Museum and crossed over to the open space of the Mall. Stopping to get a hot dog from one of the carts, he continued to walk aimlessly, feeling the need to physically exorcise his anger.

As he headed towards the Capitol Building, he could feel the frustrations of the morning starting mount and he knew he had only himself to blame. After all, the problem with having an eidetic memory is remembering everything anyone ever tells you so it becomes immediately apparent when they are lying to you. He should have known that Fiona was two-timing him with Patrick from all the little mistakes she made about where she was and when but he'd chosen to ignore them, pretending to himself that she was just scatter-brained about details, but deep-down he'd known he wasn't her first choice for romance. That had become all too clear when he'd walked in on them in the Fabrication Lab fifteen minutes ago.

"Fabrication Lab is right. She was just making it all up as she went along," he snorted to himself.

But how can I blame her? he thought sadly. Patrick was everything he wasn't – senior agent, handsome, smooth-talking, 20-20 vision…

Efraim stopped in his tracks, realizing for the first time that his glasses had fogged over as the heat from the hot dog he was eating hit them. Clumsily balancing the bun in the crook of his arm, he reached into his pocket for a handkerchief with one hand and pulled the glasses off his face with the other. It was that exact moment that he heard the screamed order "Get down!"Every iota of FBI training kicked in and he dropped like a rock just as shots rang out across the Mall. He reached for his own gun, only then realizing that his glasses had flown out of his hand as he'd dropped to the ground and he was effectively blind.

He squinted around trying to find them, only catching sight of them because of the way the sun glinted off the frames. He crawled over to pick them up, breathing a sigh of relief as the world came back into focus when he put them on. Lifting himself onto his elbows, he looked in the direction the shots had come from, in time to see a tall sandy-haired man tackle the gunman about 100 yards away. He looked around to see who had been screaming the warning and saw the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen walking towards him. She was like some kind of Nordic princess – white blonde hair, ice blue eyes, fantastic figure, panicked expression.

Panicked expression? He rolled himself into a sitting position and looked behind him to see what was causing that look on her face. All he could see was the tall guy putting the gunman in handcuffs and dragging him to his feet. He turned back to the Ice Princess and realized she still had the same expression of alarm on her face but she was now running towards him.

"Don't move! Don't get up! Just lay still! I'm going to call an ambulance! You'll be fine!" She was yelling at him but he had no idea why. He had just started to get onto his knees to stand up when she reached him and pushed him back to sit on the ground.

"I said don't move! Now where did you get hit?" She had pulled open his jacket, pushed aside his tie and was starting to undo his shirt buttons for some reason.

For a moment, Efraim couldn't do anything but stare at her but when she reached the second button he couldn't help asking "Shouldn't you at least buy me a drink first?"

"Don't talk. Let me see where you're injured."

He looked down at her hands and although he was enjoying whatever this was very much, he felt he had to point out the obvious. "Um, Miss? I'm not injured. That's ketchup from my hot dog."

She froze and then slowly pulled her hands away as she took in what he'd said. Together they looked over at where his hot dog lay crushed on the ground after he'd fallen on top of it, then back to his shirt with the ketchup smeared liberally all over. He could see why she would think it was blood given the circumstances but up close, it very obviously wasn't. It could only have been panic and adrenaline that had kept her from realizing it sooner.

She bolted backwards from him, scrambling to her feet, apologizing. "I'm so sorry – I just saw you drop and then all I saw was all the red. I thought…"

By now he was also on his feet. "I would have thought the same. Sorry I frightened you." He realized she was staring at his chest and looked down, noticing for the first time just how many buttons she had managed to undo in her quest to find his non-existent injury. He began doing them up, looking up with a grin. "It looks like you owe me more than drink. Maybe dinner."

She'd stared at him for a beat and then started to laugh. "Well, sometimes a girl will do anything to have a date on Valentine's Day."

"I don't believe anyone as beautiful as you doesn't already have a date for tonight," he said as he re-did the last button and adjusted his tie.

As he smoothed his jacket, she was distracted from what he'd said by noticing his shoulder holster for the first time. "Are you law enforcement?"

"Yes Ma'am. FBI. Efraim Beaman at your service."

"No wonder you dropped to the ground so quickly. I should have known – civilians never follow orders like that. They just stand around like sheep trying to figure out why you're yelling at them."

"You do this often then? I have to admit, it's my first time in a gunfight. I'm usually tied to a desk."

Just then, the other agent arrived beside them, walking the suspect ahead of him. Efraim's heart sank when he saw how good-looking this guy was. If this was the Princess's partner, she was never going to look twice at a guy like him.

"You ready to go, Francine? I want to get Anderson here back to the office while he's still fresh."

"Yeah, okay. I'll be right there."

Tall Guy looked at her for a moment, than at Efraim and back to Francine and rolled his eyes. "Don't be long, Sweet Cheeks – we're on the clock, remember."

Efraim noticed the flash of annoyance cross her face at her partner's words. It looked like there was trouble in paradise for lots of people this Valentine's Day.

"Your boyfriend seems eager to get going," he remarked as Tall Guy walked away with the prisoner.

"He's not my boyfriend. He's not even my partner. I'm just the last one left willing to put up with him when he's in this mood. Look, I have to go. I'm sorry about your shirt – the ketchup I mean, not the uh…" she gestured towards the buttons.

"It's fine. Better that than an actual bullet hole in me." He watched as she turned away and couldn't help calling after her as she started to follow Tall Guy. "How about that dinner sometime?"

Francine turned back with a smile. "Tell you what, hot shot FBI guy. You find me, I'll let you buy me dinner."

"It's a deal." He stood watching her walk away, wondering if she'd look back. He had to wait until she was almost at the car before she cracked and looked over her shoulder, grinning when she saw him still watching. He walked forward to get the licence plate of the innocuous brown sedan they were driving. It wasn't going to take him long to find her, now that he had a dinner riding on it.

"I'll let you buy me dinner"

He chuckled to himself, wondering if maybe she was going to turn out to be a little more princess than he could handle, then chided himself mentally. "Of course she's too much for you to handle. You're Efraim Beaman, super nerd." He started to walk back across the mall towards 6th Street. He knew there was a mens' store along there where he could get a clean shirt. ""But you're super nerd with a lot of resources and you're going to get that dinner." He had a table booked that night for him and Fiona but he already knew that was going to go to waste – he'd never find Ice Princess quickly enough to invite her.

Half an hour later, he was walking back through the cubicle maze on his way to his desk. He could see Fiona perched on it, waiting for him and he wondered what kind of weepy apology scene he was in for when he got there and dreading it in the way only an extreme introvert could. He was still only halfway across the room, girding himself for the conversation when his boss leaned out of his office door and yelled his name. Heaving a sigh of relief that it was all going to be postponed a bit longer, he wheeled immediately and headed over to O'Malley's office.

"Beaman – keep your coat on. We need you to go on a little inter-Agency secondment duty this afternoon."

"Really Sir? Me Sir? Why?" Efraim was understandably confused – he was not the type of agent who was usually loaned out.

"One of our sister agencies is in immediate need of a Fabrications specialist since theirs collapsed with a burst appendix this morning. Here's the address, get your butt in gear. I promised you to them over an hour ago."

Efraim turned to leave but turned back when O'Malley began to speak again. "And Efraim, don't go back to your desk. Let that little witch sweat it out a bit. You're going to be on this secondment for at least two weeks, maybe longer. She'll figure out Patrick's bad news by then."

"Thank you, Sir. But I don't think I'll be troubling myself with that particular problem again any time soon."

"Good for you. Now get out of here."

He found the address on the slip of paper easily enough but stood outside for a moment, confused He had thought that O'Malley was sending him to work with a law enforcement group, but the sign outside said it was a film company. He shrugged and walked up to the front door. That made as much sense as anything else – film makers would need props, maybe he was there to provide some sort of technical advice. Opening the front door, he found himself being greeted by a polite middle-aged woman who took his name and confirmed it on a list on her desk.

She gestured for him to take a seat across from her as she called someone to let them know he was there. "Yes, Ms. Desmond. I'll get him set up with his badge while we wait for you. How much access will he be needing? I see. And for how long? Alright, thank you, Ms. Desmond."

The receptionist turned back to him. "Mr. Melrose's assistant is on her way to fetch you. If you could just sign here, here and here, I'll issue you a guest pass for this afternoon and we'll have a more permanent one for you when you leave since you might be with us for a while."

As he finished signing all the confidentiality forms he heard the sound of an elevator arriving. He lifted his head, confused, certain that he hadn't noticed any elevator when he'd walked in. To his astonishment, a door which he had assumed to be a closet suddenly opened and a rack of coats was pushed aside to reveal someone standing in what was obviously an elevator car. He stood up, wondering again what kind of office this was.

He felt the grin start to spread as the lone occupant ducked under the coat rail and stepped out of the elevator. The Ice Princess looked up to see him standing there and her mouth fell open in shock.

"Happy Valentine's Day, Francine. I have a booking at Spencer's tonight if that's alright with you?"

Her mouth snapped shut and she stared at him wordlessly for a moment before finally starting to laugh. "What took you so long?"