November 15th, 2020 Austin, TX

22:03, S Guadalupe Street

The heat was overwhelming, oppressing. Charlie stumbled on a crooked stone in the sidewalk, tripping through the thick air like falling through murky water. She could feel it on her skin, in her eyes, in her throat: fat water droplets, made gluttonous like cotton balls. It made her parched and sweaty at the same time. She needed a beer, and fast. Or hell, even a friggin' jug of water. Her pointed shoes painfully squeezed her toes again and she grimaced. Okay, water and some ice. Lots of ice.

La Hacienda was still open and fortunately rather empty. Charlie strode past the Hispanic man lounging in the large, glass-free window. He drunkenly tipped his hat at her as she slid into the barstool. She muttered something in perfect Spanish to the bartender, who was eyeing her with his one good eye. The other was hidden by a black patch strapped around the back of his head. The man grunted and slammed a shot glass on the wooden bar. He filled it up with two flicks of his wrist, and then from under the wall cabinet, he added a bottle of water to the shot glass.

Charlie took the shot, chased it down by a gulp of water, and used the rest of the cold water as a compress against her head.

"Wouldn't suppose you got any Advil, do ya?" She raised a semi-hopeful glance to the one-eyed bartender. He grunted again, shook his head and walked to the end of the bar to continue to "clean" a glass, his back facing her.

"Didn't think so," she muttered.

The ancient jukebox spluttered, wheezed and fell into a slow two-step with Johnny Cash. This place was so different from what she knew, what she remembered. There was a party scene, here and there, but if you looked hard enough, or if you were the right kind of drunk, you could stumble back into 1912 with the cowboys and cattle and a southern drawl and the campfires. Campfires. She was good with those. Campfires brought her back to what she knew. She took the bottle from the wedge in the bar and filled up her glass again. Hmm. It was strange how much wood-soaked tequila tasted like campfires.

Charlie checked the clock again and stamped down the inclination to text Jakes and see if he liked tracking down illegal bear fur traders in Canada more than hunting down golden canaries in the So-Cal. Something about the ease by which he adopted the Jamaican accent told her no, but Charlie just laughed to herself. She took another shot and the campfire by the Pacific Ocean became clearer in her mind. Briggs with all his swagger; his overwhelming sense of leadership and security. She hoped he was happy there, still training new recruits in Florida. It wasn't Graceland, nothing ever would be, but Briggs needed to be the big Papa Bear to all the new little agents. In all honesty, she was surprised he accepted the position: any thoughts of Graceland, especially towards the end, sent Charlie herself into a crawling depression. It was the alcohol and the tiredness that allowed her to linger in the past for so long. Then there was Johnny. Last she heard of Johnny, he was back in the Mother Land and out of the agency, but still trying to do good in the world. He was building missions for the orphanages around Mexico City. There was never a doubt he would help people, but clearly an agent's life was not meant for all of them. But how many people could stay sane, much less in the business, after what happened to Graceland, to Lauren—

Her mental picture of the campfire froze on Lauren's smiling face, her brilliant blue eyes. They had been like sisters. Until one night a man with a long butcher knife came and—

Paige, who probably had the biggest balls of them all, stayed in California. She stuck it out. With Graceland gone, she moved back into the belly of the dragon, the offices there in San Pedro. There she does paperwork and occasionally gets up from her desk to get a snack from the break room. But she's the bravest. She's still there. She'd be the first one they'd call if they ever found a body.

Charlie shuddered from a cold under her own skin and took a final shot, the shot that released a warm buzz down her back. A breeze that smelled like the Pacific Ocean tumbled through the suddenly open front door. A Texas Ranger strutted in, his hat tipped low. He made a slow gesture to the bartender, who quickly went to work preparing the drink. Charlie watched the bartender instead of the approaching stranger. By all accounts, the big man with two snakes tatted down the sides of his trunk-like biceps was absolutely terrified. Quick eye movements. Shaking hands. Avoidance of eye-contact.

While Charlie watched, the man slid up behind her. She was acutely aware of how close he was, and how unfortunately un-drunk he was. If this had been some big, dumb cop with a bottle of whiskey on his breath, she could lay him flat with two quick jabs. But this guy was clear, and solid, like a stone rubbed smooth under a waterfall. He pressed up against her back. Charlie's hand slowly dropped off the bar and casually reached for her inner thigh— where she had kept a 340PD since she graduated from the academy. Like a stroke of lightening, the man grabbed her wrist, his thumb grazing her thigh. His breath was rough in her hair.

"Is that really how you want to greet your old undercover buddy?"

Charlie's heart skipped a beat.

The man released her hand, finger pads scraping gently the top of her thigh as he drew away. He climbed into the leather seat next to her as though he was climbing into a '67 FireBird. Michael Warren took off his hat and flashed a defeated smile at her. He played with it in his hands, flicking the leather straps back and forth. A brilliant white scar dug into his right eyebrow, as though someone had stretched a piece of thick thread into his skin. After years of wounds and healing, she knew it hadn't healed properly. Someone hadn't given him the right medical treatment and now his face was marred slightly because of it.

The bartender returned with his drink and Mike slugged it back without asking if she wanted any.

"So the prodigal son returns." Charlie muttered. It's not polite to stare. She leaned forward, the room suddenly swerving sharply before righting itself again. She laughed and hoped the sound wasn't forced. Mike didn't seem to notice as he smiled again, a dart of his tongue escaping his brilliant mouth to lap up a drop of loose whiskey.

"Define returns. If return you mean, stationed in the devil's armpit in a final test to prove I am di-rect-or material, then yeah, I've returned."

I meant, you ass, returned into my life. "Well, it's good to see you're still in one piece. We all worried about you."

Mike snorted. "All of you? You still keep up with them, all of them?" He shot her a sidelong glance, one filled with slightly more malice than Charlie cared to see come from those baby-blues.

Charlie shrugged. "No, I guess, not all of them. But I know, where ever the hell they are, they think about you." She thought she saw his hand clench around his shot glass, but he moved to throw off his jacket with an abrupt laugh.

"Okay, look, let's start again. Charlie DeMaro," he looked at her roughly, his eyes blurry, "what the hell are you doing in Austin, Texas at eleven o'clock at night in a seedy, Hispanic dive?" He held up a shot glass for her to clink, his bottom lip pouting in his witty smirk. She felt the swell of familiarity rise and turning to gather both her glass and the bottle, she winked at him.

"What else, Michael Warren," she poured two healthy shots into their glasses, "but a case."

He nodded knowingly and they drank to the health and longevity of agents everywhere.

"And what case would that be?"

Charlie frowned and glanced at the tipsy Mexican rotating in the window. Mike shook his head.

"Neither of these guys know enough English to order a pizza much less divulge the secrets of the FBI." He pointed to the man in the window. "Hector Sanches, runs a local restaurant about five blocks from here. It's been in the family for five generations." He pointed to the bartender. "Marques Fresco, already on two strikes. He doesn't want to be messing into anything else because his wife is due in November. You gotta trust me on this."

"Sounds like you served him that second strike, Mike." Charlie muttered. Simultaneously they glanced at the big bartender. The man visibly swallowed and turned deeper into the corner of the bar, his hands still furiously working to clean the spotless glass.

Mike leaned in and Charlie realized how much weight he carried. It was why she didn't recognize him the moment he stepped foot into the dive. The tan collared shirt stretched tight against his back muscles as he moved, his forearms twisting beneath the cotton. Finally changed up that gruesome grass-root shake, didn't you? Despite the fact that she no longer doubted he could singlehandedly manhandle two-strikers like the bartender, she still had the sense of urgency to protect him, to tell him to not sweat the big stuff. Like a moonflower blossoming under pale beams of light, she remembered a night very different from this one. The one night he told her everything was going to be okay. Blinking into these eyes worn hard by the doomed anguish every guardian of the law must suffer, she couldn't imagine that he too remembered that night.

I'm so sorry, Mikey.

"You're not wrong, Ms. Demarco." Mike grinned at her and finished off the next glass. Charlie followed, throwing back the drink. The spicy zing of the tequila burned the corners of her eyes and evaporated all water there. The gasp she released was from a particularly hot cup, she let Mikey believe.

"You still haven't told me why you're here."

"C'mon, Mike, it's been ages since we've had a good drink between us," Charlie said, gesturing to the bottle and glasses. "Can't we just talk?"

Mike shrugged, the movement oddly stiff but perhaps it was just the constricting collared shirt. "What do you want to talk about?"

"Where've you been, what you've seen, who you've met! I mean, I don't need all gory details, but if you're a step up from director, you shoulda seen the world!" Charlie slapped the back of her hand against his shoulder, grinning. Mike nodded, smiling ever so slightly. But he was retreating, pulling away. With every shake of his head, Mike Warren, fresh out of Quantico, flashed then died to give way to Michael, the Texas Ranger undercover.

"I've gone to China, trying to shut down a weapons ring that had started to pick up sixteen year old girls for a double bonus with every purchase of an illegal M-16. They're still trying to return all the girls to their homes. I went to San Francisco to catch an optometrist who was embezzling thousands. I met a girl there. We dated. She couldn't stand the hours and I think she knew I wasn't an accountant." His head dropped, blurring out his eyes in shadow. Then he raised his head and took a sip of Charlie's water. "Been to Paris, Tokyo, Buenos Aires, Salt Lake City and Monterey. Been a lot of other places I can't talk about. I got a lot of high profile cases because I've always been the best. Here, looking for some illegals before they skip over the border, isn't any different."

"But it's what you wanted to do, right?" Charlie wondered if she as hopeless to him as she did to herself.

"Of course it is," Mike smiled and Charlie's erratic pulse slowed. Thick crows feet splintered from the corners of his eyes and those baby blue sung again. He was happy; he was taken care of. Charlie drank another sip of water to stifle the sigh of relief.

"It's just . . . no one ever really warned us what the job would do. I mean, yeah, we had to sign a liability waiver, but c'mon. Nobody really gave us the whole picture."

"And that's how they reel in new recruits every year," she tapped him on the arm with the bottom of her glass. "They tell us we'd be heroes, but they never specify how, or the cost."

Mike smiled again, laughing softly into the crook of his crossed arms that rested on the bar. "You always knew exactly what to say."

Charlie looked away, playing with the shot glass between her fingers. "If I recall correctly, in times of trouble, Merry Mike came to me, whispering words of wisdom, everything is going to be okay."

"I don't think that's how the song goes," Mike grinned. "But that coming from the woman who consistently makes up her own words to Benny and the Jets, I'm not surprised!"

"Hey!" She swatted him on the arm and he laughed, spinning slowly on the leather seat. "It's not like any of those Chinese morons had any idea that I was even remotely wrong!"

"Not when you wore Black Mambo No. 5." Mike winked and his gaze dropped just for a moment, but it was long enough for her heart to jitter ever so slightly. He looked away, not abashed as he once might have, but because he knew it was not his place to look.

"Yeah, well, I'd like to see how you'd dress to distract an entire room full of arms dealers while your undercover buddies snuck into the backroom." Charlie said, swishing around the leftovers in her glass.

"Hey, hey, I'm not saying I could do any better." Mike raised his hands in defense. "It was just a very interesting sight, walking into a very dangerous, privately owned club and it being totally silent, with every mouth open and eyes mesmerized on the stage. And to my great surprise, I find out that it's you butchering the classic Elton John song, but being so incredibly hot, nobody cared. That, my elegant friend, is how you work undercover."

"We all have our talents, Mikey."

It was like playing Hot Pepper with a hand-grenade. This was all too close, too familiar. It was just one word away, one small sentence and this night of great reunion, of a possible renewed friendship would be blown to hell. And the tip-toe act was making her nauseous.

Charlie straightened up, took a deep breath and put a hand over his.

"Are you still mad at me?"

It felt like an eternity before he answered.

August 2nd, 2013, San Pedro, CA

Graceland: 0600

"Oh, no, no, no." Mike dug through the washer and pulled out his favorite red t-shirt. With horror, he assessed its colored damage. All of Briggs's stark white underwear, socks and running shirts were a brilliant pink. In an effort to get Briggs to see him as one of the Graceland crew, Mike washed his training officer's laundry first thing on Monday morning. What Mike hadn't expected was that one of his own shirts had accidentally been left in the bottom of the washer, a drifter from a previous load. And it had to be the brightest shirt Mike owned. Every single piece of clothing that went into that washer was now the color of Mike's niece's Barbie tricycle. "Oh my God, this cannot be happening. Briggs is going to skin me."

"Probably."

Mike jumped, his heart pounding and he spun to face the intruder. It was Charlie, in running shorts and a very ratty tank top. Her hair was still mussed from sleep. Through the sleep still in her eyes, she grinned and leaned against the doorway.

"I don't know, but I definitely don't think pink is his color," Charlie said, shrugging. "And I'm pretty sure Briggs will agree."

"I'm screwed." Mike shook his head, wide eyes wandering over the stained clothes. "I've been here for two months and it's not even the bad guys that are going to get me sent back to Quantico. It's the friggin' detergent."

"Yeah, there's pretty much no way you can save those clothes." Charlie nodded. A mischievous smirk lurked temptingly on her lips. She stepped away from the door and came up next to Mike. It was always in these shorts or dresses or komonos that Charlie settled herself right next to him. He swallowed as she brushed him with her hair and reached for the pen attached to the chore wheel. She smelled like vanilla strawberries. His toes curled. Why couldn't you come this close in a SWAT suit, or in full body armor, or in a giant plastic bubble or—

She took his wrist and wrote something down on his palm.

"This is the address of Briggs's favorite store. Kinda like Walmart but not as big or as owned by corporate evil. It opens in thirty minutes and Briggs's won't be back from downtown until 0900."

Mike blinked, ripping his eyes away from the curl under her left ear and forcing himself to look at the address. It was several seconds before his brain restarted. For a moment, the words on his palm looked like gibberish.

"Wait, how do you know this? Why are you helping me?"

"I wouldn't have given you Donnie's key if I didn't think you were something special." She returned the pen to the chore wheel and sighed. "Now, I'm going to go into the kitchen, get some cereal and if Briggs finds out about this and asks for my involvement in anyway, I will lie through my teeth. Now, go get 'em, Tiger."

She saluted him in a sleepy way and was gone. Mike took a deep breath, cleared his thoughts of all strawberry vanilla scents, and headed for the store.

*A/N: hey guys. I know this is a little preemptive as the show is about two episodes in, but I'm literally rolling in Mike x Charlie feels and I just had to do something about it. This'll be a short fic, but definitely multi-chaptered. This is just something fun and light hearted for summer. Please let me know what you think.