Here's a deleted scene that I held onto. It makes a complete scene in my head, which is why I wrote it, but had nothing to contribute to the story, which is why I cut it.

For those who have read the story, this is after the first chapter where Artie briefs Pete and Myka. Just sort of ties it all together, for me at least. And its fun.

Let me know if this was worth releasing or if I should keep the deleted scenes out from now on. :)

Artie's stomach asserted its self at the smell of breakfast. He forced his attention back to finish the briefing before he starved, or worse, fell asleep. "Ok! Last location was New York on the 6th. I traced him to somewhere in Iowa." He handed the agents their plane tickets.

Pete flinched. "Iowa? Are there a lot of diplomats and mobsters in Iowa Artie?"

"No… but this guy doesn't stay off the radar by hanging out in big cities. I suspect that he uses the small towns of America to live in until something else comes up for him. He'll blend in."

Myka glanced at her ticket and looked like she was ready to walk out the door already. She and Pete exchanged one of their looks where they could tell what the other was thinking. Artie watched them and waited. He saw their shared determination and smiled inwardly at their partnership. Neither had anymore questions so he shooed them away to pack with a "Keep in contact!" They thundered up the stairs.

The senior agent sat heavily into his chair. Artie stared at his coffee cup, reviewing the briefing in his mind. He wanted to make sure that there wasn't something important that he missed telling them. He had told them every detail that he wanted to and even a few suspicions that he had on this one. Anything else that they needed he would simply have to find. He felt like he started a timer by setting Pete and Myka on the assassin's trail. Artie wished he knew how much time was on that timer.

He again considered putting himself in the field on this mission. He was the most senior agent and he should be the one out there risking his neck chasing an assassin, but Artie also knew that Pete and Myka would be needed quick and hard to find intel. He knew that Claudia couldn't handle the digging and link connecting, even if Leena were to help. He had to stay in the warehouse on this one. The thought of putting his agents on such dangerous case without him there made his guts wrench.

The old agent was brought out of his trance by Leena walking up to the table. He sighed and reached for the coffee pot again. Leena put her hand on top of his stopping him from lifting the pot. She set down a plate of vegetable omelets under his nose.

Artie gave up the coffee without a fight and grabbed his fork. He just started tucking into the breakfast when Claudia thundered down the stairs.

"Hey Leena!"

"Good morning."

"Where are Pete and Myka going?

"Iowa apparently." Leena motioned to the table. Claudia turned to see Artie wearily poking at his eggs.

"Oh." Claudia knew that a plane ride meant that they were sent on a case. She sat down next to her boss at the table.

"Morning sunshine." She said with obvious sarcasm. She was welcomed with a grunt. Claudia huffed a little at his response, but it was a late night and it looked to her like Artie slept less than she did. "Did you get another shot of that guy?" Artie shook his head and sighed. "But you found his location?" she pressed. The last thing that Claudia knew of the case was late the night before when Artie sent her home after finding her asleep on her computer.

"I found what might be a trail." he shrugged to his toast. "We'll know more when Pete and Myka get on the ground there."

Claudia's empty stomach registered its dissatisfaction. She looked over to Leena who was finishing cooking at the stove. "Hey Leena? Is there…"

Leena smiled a little at the girl and held out some eggs that she had saved for her. "Grab a plate." Claudia jumped up and in a second had a plate ready for Leena to slide the remainder of the eggs onto. "The bread is still out for toast if you want it."

Claudia smiled and said "Thanks." Artie forced a late night working when the mysterious man popped up on their system and she was grateful for leftover breakfast. Claudia joined her boss at the table. Leena took up the coffee pot as Artie was reaching for it.

"What..? Leena…." He weakly protested following the pot with his empty cup.

"You'll never get to sleep if you keep drinking this." She opened the fridge and poured him a glass of milk. She set it down in front of the pouting agent.

Claudia was confused. "Sleep? But we just…." Then she knew why Artie looked so wiped. "Aww… dude! You didn't…. You said that you were right behind me!"

Artie shrunk just slightly at the confrontation. "I was!" he snuck a sideways glance at Claudia. "But then…" Then… what? he thought. There were a million things that he wanted to check out before sending his agents out to confront a professional assassin. There were still a million more angles that he wanted to look at and a uncountable other things that needed his attention.

He realized that Claudia was looking at him with a hurt look on her face. "I didn't know." She said. "I would have stayed." Artie opened his mouth to try to say something, but he had no idea what. His brain was foggy from the lack of sleep and he couldn't go from hard core case briefing to teenage emotional speak so quickly. He gave up and shoved the last of his toast into his mouth. Claudia huffed and mumbled something about a "team."

Artie was thinking of the fastest way to remove himself from the uncomfortable situation when Leena caught his eye. She stared at him and motioned at Claudia. The graying agent looked positively helpless. He saw that Claudia was just nibbling at the edges of her eggs. He caught her saying something about "I'm part of the team… with a bed time!" He looked to Leena for help. She gave him the "talk to her" motion with her hand. She crossed her arms and waited, encouraging him to try.

The agent suddenly felt very old. He gulped uncomfortably. "Um. Claudia…" Claudia looked at him with eyes that made him feel terrible. All he wanted to do was go catch up on sleep, but he couldn't leave with Claudia looking like that, so he gathered himself with a sigh. He pushed his tired body for one more task. "Listen, I needed you ready for today." Claudia looked at him suspiciously. "Pete and Myka will need research support and I need you ready to go. To ah— cover for me. You- you have to be there for them. You had to be ready for today." He stumbled on what he really wanted to say, but his brain wasn't working quite right.

Claudia considered his words. Leena was satisfied to see the girl's aura start to shift back to her normal perky colors. Claudia gathered herself and shot Artie a slight smile that looked like it took a hundred pound weight off of him.

"What are you gonna do?"

"Uh. I have some things to get done."

"Like sleep." Leena injected.

"Yes, yes. Like sleep." He rubbed his brow as he mentally rearranged his errand list inserting sleep at the top. "Claudia, with you running support, I might be able to run by the bank to open that account for you." Claudia smiled a little at that thought. Artie and Leena had been trying to get Claudia into something of a normal life. Part of that involved getting things that normal people have, things like bank accounts. The banks, for some reason, didn't want to give accounts to people with her kind of history, so Artie had to sign for her.

Claudia grinned outright. Artie was trusting her enough for him to do something other than pace and yell when Pete and Myka were out on a mission.

"If anything comes up, call me!" he held her gaze for a second to make sure that she got his point.

"Yes! Absolutely!" She sat up straight at the breakfast table.

Artie looked at her. He figured that could get a few hours of sleep, run to the bank and be back at the warehouse before Myka and Pete landed. He wasn't lying about Claudia running support for Pete and Myka though. He dug into his bag and drew out his copy of the case file. He handed it to Claudia. Her eyes widened in excitement. "Review it." he ordered. "I want you to look at every connection, every lead. Ok?"

"Yeah! Ok. Got it!" Claudia's suspicion of Artie not really meaning what he was saying evaporated when he handed her his case file. He offered her an encouraging look.

After seeing Claudia grin with excitement Artie relaxed and blinked slowly. He was suddenly extremely tired and had to drag his eyelids back open. Claudia saw his struggle.

"Hey. How about you listen to Leena and let me handle the warehouse for a few hours hu?"

Artie smirked at suddenly going from care taker to being taken care of. He nodded his agreement. "Yeah." Leena had dealt with Artie working through the nights before and they settled into their practiced routines. She held open the kitchen door for him. As he stumbled through it he let her take the bag out of his hands. She put the bag on the table at the foot of the stairs as he wearily climbed up to his room. "Try to take off your shoes this time." She called after him.