Set after Decoy Effect, when Don screams at Nikki after she risks her life in that van. Rated T for some language, and nasty thoughts. Just so you know, there will be no character death in this fanfiction, despite the implications of the first few chapters. Would I really do that to my favourite characters?

Enjoy

Chapter One

Nikki positively seethed. Well, negatively in fact. Either way, lightning buzzed between her intensely curly hairs and whoever she passed in the corridor to the kit room gave her a considerably wide berth.

How dare he speak to her like that! Yeah, maybe she could have handled things a little better out there in the field, but there was no need for the humiliation, in front of the whole office. She got the job done, didn't she?

Nikki wrenched her weapon from her waistband, pulling her jacket off her shoulders with such force that it almost ripped. When Don entered, feeling guilty about his earlier harsh words, he fully expected steam to come pouring from her ears and her eyes to glow red.

Instead, she gave him a curt nod, acknowledging his presence.

"Eppes." He rolled his eyes in reply, knowing fine well that she was angry, and wondering if maybe she had the right to be.

"Don't be like that." She continued to take off her utility belt, her movements jerky and unpredictable. Angry.

"Sorry." Her voice blatantly lacked sincerity, but was rife with sarcasm. "What do you want me to be like?" He crossed the room in two complete strides, leaving the door half open and ignoring the wariness in Nikki's eyes as he came closer.

"I want you to act more responsibly." He leant against the lockers, trying to look into her face. Trying to gauge how she was feeling.

"Really? You could have just talked to me in here, where the whole office wasn't in on it." He gave a half amused, half indignant snort, making her eye him critically. "What?"

"Don't think you get special treatment just because you haven't seen how everything works around here." Pausing in what she was doing, she stared at him, disbelief apparent on her face.

"What?" Her voice, already higher than his, rose by two octaves. "Talking to me in private would only be special treatment if you treated everyone else like crap too."

"Betancourt-"

"I get that I'm the newbie. I need to go through some sort of crowning FBI ritual, to be accepted as part of your team. I get that; I had to do the same exact thing when I went through LAPD. But this is nothing to do with the mission, you just don't like me." Don scoffed.

"That's ridiculous. You're being paranoid, Betancourt." Sure, he didn't agree with her methods, or the way she talked to her superiors, but that didn't mean that he didn't like her. He liked her sass; he thought it refreshing and to tell the honest truth, it seemed to work for her. "I told you before, Betancourt, you have nothing to prove to me." She made a show of ignoring him, knowing that what she'd said was wrong. She had no right to tell him what he was thinking, but she was just so damned angry!

In an attempt to force her boss to leave the room, she unbuttoned her blouse, facing him with her eyes never leaving his, and pulled it off so violently she suspected she might have ripped a seam. Don tried not to notice how her small yet fleshy breasts bulged from their simple black holsters, and looked away, his mouth suddenly dry.

"I'm not trying to prove myself, Eppes." The frustration was clear in her voice; she sounded almost pained. "You just chewed off my head because I went for the alpha, when that was our objective!" Don shook his head, his own frustration growing. Jesus, this one was almost as stubborn as Charlie.

"No, I chewed your head off because you nearly got yourself killed!" Nikki threw her blouse to the ground, and Don looked away as his mind was distracted by the way her exposed body moved.

"No," She started, voice shaking with rage. "You chewed my head off because I broke procedure!" With considerable force, she pushed him square in the chest, to prove a point. He was pushed back slightly, though she was not victorious for she felt like she had just slapped a brick wall. Which continued to shout at her.

"The rules are there for a reason-"

"Don't you bloody patronise me!" Nikki screamed. Heads turned in the nearby office, and agents peered through the half open door with quiet interest. "I made a judgement call, and it paid off!"

"It just as easily might not have!"Don couldn't help but to shout, frustration bubbling then bursting forth, his own words beyond his control. "I mean, do you have a death wish or something?" Nikki turned back to her locker, voice subdued slightly.

"Get over it Eppes. You can't control everything." It was a defence mechanism; when threatened, Nicole Betancourt lashes out at what is scaring her. In this case, it happened to be Don.

His voice immediately quietened. All of those who truly knew him well, or who had worked with him for any long amount of time, knew that this was quite possibly where the real trouble began.

"What did you just say to me?" He asked, his voice low but dangerous. Nikki, too angry to notice the change in his tone, replied with a shout, her voice echoing through her locker.

"I do not have a death wish, Eppes. I just want to get the job done, which is a good thing!"

"Then do it properly." He bitched, his voice flat and emotionless. Not shaking, nor loud. Just deadpan, as if he had disconnected his emotions from the conversation.

"What do you care? Agents die all the time and you clearly don't want me as your partner." Her boss' face did not change, soberly staring into hers, as hard and emotionless as granite. Don, however, was baffled.

"If all of us had that mentality, Quantico would be working double time to replace all of the agents risking their lives over nothing." Nikki shook her head again, facing her open locker. "And I don't not want you as my partner, I just don't want you doing anything stupid. If you're gonna be on my team, I'm going to need to trust you."

"Why are you here?" Not wanting to completely answer that question, and not entirely knowing how to, Don evaded.

"I work here, Betancourt." If looks could kill, an Eppes barbecue would be cooking.

"Don't mess with me, Eppes." She growled, her tone deeper and nastier than he had ever heard it, in the two weeks they had been partnered together. "You made your point out on the floor. What are you doing in here, except watching me undress, that is." He slammed her locker shut, making her jump backwards in alarm and shrink away from him. The expression on her face was one of true fright, Don almost backed down when he saw the apprehension in her eyes. She really thought that he was going to hurt her.

"I'm here to make sure that you don't make any more mistakes like the one you made today." He rook his flattened palm off the cool blue metal of her locker, and it swung ajar, creaking ever so slightly in the silence that followed his words. Neither paid it any heed. "Believe it or not, Betancourt, I don't want you dead."

Nikki shrugged.

"What does it matter, I only have a few more years anyway." She muttered, to herself. It was meant as an offhand comment, solely for her own musing, but Don caught it. Almost immediately after the words had left her mouth, she broke eye contact. Yet, she continued talking; a technique used to distract him from her previous words. "You're just trying to cover your ass. If I die, you have one hell of a lot of paperwork to do-"

"Wait, what?" She didn't really mean what she had just said; it was the only thing she could think of when her head was full of annoyance and anger. So she ignored his confused expression and continued.

"But you're going to have to deal with it Eppes, because-"

"What do you mean; you only have a few years anyway?" He didn't miss the nervous twitch of her left hand, or the swallowing action that she made.

"Agents die all the time." Her lie was as swift and untraceable as her truths, years of LAPD perfecting her already higher than average ability to deceive. Don saw right through it.

"That's not what you meant." He said, quietly, trying not to tempt her to shout again.

"What the hell do you know about what I meant? You don't know me! You're my boss, not my friend! You're here to shout at me and sign my pay checks, not braid my hair and chat as we watch Ralph Fiennes and Jennifer Lopez falling in love! Don't presume you know so much about me, Eppes," she took two steps towards him, and he took one back. They touched every time she inhaled, the half exposed skin of her heaving chest pressing against his. "Because you don't." He felt a shudder quivering against his nerve endings, and he tried his best to suppress it.

"I know all I need to know that you were lying just there." His tone was carefully controlled, and constructed to sound even; as if he was the boss, and he was on top.

Nikki looked down, her anger failing her, leaving an oddly lost feeling; the room growing colder and her body growing smaller. She suddenly felt very exposed, and crossed her arms across her chest, shielding her chest from Don's view. He was grateful.

"Let it be, Eppes. You have no business meddling in affairs you couldn't possibly understand." The look of shock, fading annoyance and puzzlement on her boss' face hurt her, because despite their current dislike for each other, she hated keeping secrets from him. He was right; they were partners now, and they needed to learn to trust one another.

She supposed that he would kind of understand her situations. After all, he, like she, had lost his mother. Although it was just over five years ago now, and pain and anguish had faded to acceptance, they will never vanish completely.

The main difference was that he knew his mom. He knew that there were risks of having cancer – he was genetically predisposed to it. He has had time to think and to adjust to the fact that he could, at some point, be dying, and he would be prepared – as much as he could be – for any such news. As supposed to Nikki, who was still reeling from the news that her father had delivered, merely two days ago, in an attempt to make her quit her new dangerous job at the FBI.

It wasn't cancer though; like Mother Eppes, and it wasn't even confirmed. Nikki just knew that her mother – the one who she had grown up thinking left her father for another man – died because of it. And there was a pretty good chance that she would too.

Taking a deep breath, Nikki turned away from her boss, breaking his strong gaze and facing her cold lifeless locker instead.

"Go back to work, Eppes. We've made enough office rumors for today." Don glanced to the door, where sure enough, several agents were accumulated, intrigued by the two partners within. They scattered, obviously, as soon as he turned his head, fixing them with an icy stare.

"Tell me about it." Sighing, she shook her head. All the fight had left her, and she pulled her discarded jacket across her chest, very conscious of her lack of clothing, and how close they were.

"Maybe another time."

"Tell you what, I'll bring 'Maid in Manhattan' if you bring the ice cream." Despite her anger, and her emptiness, a small tired smile made its way to her lips. She rolled her eyes.

"I can't believe that you got that reference." He grinned, making her smile wider.

"It's my job to know things." He was rewarded with a chuckle, and his anger dissipated. Don felt much more at ease.

"You like that film? You're such a girl, Eppes." He let his smile fade, knowing that the short, good-humoured banter was just a way to put their fight on hold. It wasn't finished until she told him what he needed to know. Partners have no secrets; if they always know what's going on with each other, it's so much easier to take the fall for the person who they trust the most in the world.

"Don't worry me like you did today." Realising that she wasn't going to give anything else up today on the subject, or in fact a distantly related subject, he sighed.

What could be so terrible that she couldn't tell him about it? Past her magnetic field for trouble, and coarse East LA justice, she was good at what she did; she was an honest woman. Don couldn't deny that she had potential to be as good, if not better, an agent as he is now, but whatever this was bout, worried him immensely. Her sass was flattened by just touching on the subject; what would happen if whatever it was happened? Why did she only have a few years?

He wanted to teach her, to make her a great FBI agent, but simultaneously he wanted to protect her young soul from the dangers of the big bad world. Mind you, that's just he beginning of everything he wanted to do with her. A student should never die before his teacher; that's what his dad always used to tell him. If there was an issue with trust, he needed to address it as soon as possible before it endangered either – or even both – of them. But how?

Don closed the door on the way out, and Nikki felt the last of the warmth in the room melt away like butter on the sidewalk on a hot California Sunday; seeping through the cracks between the slabs and evaporating, disappearing without any proof that it was ever there at all.

She shivered, and continued to undress.

Review to find out what's wrong with Nikki, and spend some time with the rest of the team. x