Stress

Con pays attention to Jamie as she talks, reminding himself that he needs to lest he miss something. He sighs a little and nods. "Yeah, I'll probably head into work sometime today, though I'd just as soon never see that place again." He bites his tongue, not quite having wanted to say that out loud, and quickly moves on. "I think you should rest instead of doing work, but if you want, I'll take you in. I should run home and shower...get some clean clothes on, then come back here." He cocks his head a little. "You be okay for a while?"


Reese chuckles and slings an arm around Misty's shoulder. "Alright, let's take you down to meet Rick."

He leads Misty down the main floor, pointing out several people to greet along the way before they turn down the hall of offices. A shorts ways down they come to Rick's lab and office.

Rick is standing at the counter examining some blood samples of Con and Jason's, still trying to find anything out about the strange poison that he can. Hearing someone enter, he turns, a smile forming. "Well, good morning."

"Misty, this is Rick, Rick, Misty," Reese informally introduces.

Rick steps forward to shake Misty's hand. "Pleasure. I've been looking forward to having a second set of hands around here. Things can stay pretty quiet sometimes, but when it rains it pours, and at the moment I'm backed up on research."

Thinking of their current case, Reese questions him. "Seen Carson this morning?"

"No." Rick shakes his head. "I was waiting for Wyatt or Nate to come in first in case there was any trouble."

Reese looks to Misty. "Carson's our resident p.o.w. I guess you could say. Got shot in the shoulder and we're keeping him here in our holding cell at the moment."


Laura lifts her head as she hears Nate fooling with the computer. Once it's fixed, she quirks a weary smile. "Thanks, Nate. Scott's been over here a million times lately - I think I must have some magnetic pull or something - anytime I touch it it breaks." She rolls her eyes and sighs.

Her eyes glance over the note on the wall and she remembers. "Oh, and thanks for the note. I think I'm gonna have to read it several times today if things keep going like they are."

As Nate suggests going out for lunch, Laura's eyebrow raises just slightly, though she suppresses any surprise, and looks at him with apology instead. "You know what, I've got a stack of paperwork to go through, Reese is riding my tail about the Hinley case from Boughton county, Jason's supposed to be meeting with me about this latest mess, sometime today I have to run to the store, I've got to get together with Con at some point, I have a zillion emails waiting for replies, and about ten different phone calls to field agents who need answers on their own cases..."

Laura's voice trails off as she realizes just how much is on her plate. The weight of recent events seems to be pressing down on her harder than ever, and she's struggling just to stand up under it. She didn't normally let her emotions get the best of her, but she can feel the tears building behind her eyes. So many people she loved had gotten hurt lately. Her mind takes her back to her conversation with Katie about the past, and she's flooded with memories again as concern for her brother persists. She just wanted to fix everything so it was all alright again. Her emotions had been brought to the surface while dealing with what Con had been going through, and now she felt completely out of control. She just felt so...emotional all of a sudden, which wasn't like her. She was known for her strength, and felt silly for not seeming to be able to pull out of this one. But with everything going wrong this morning, it just seemed to make it all the worse.

As her lower lip starts to quiver, she turns away from Nate to concentrate on a report at her desk and swallows hard, letting her damp hair fall around her face to hide the tear that finally escapes.


Jason finally makes it to TJY and heads directly to his office, wanting to get organized before he was bombarded with anything else. He'd probably wind up with Carson a bit later, but for now, he just needed to get focused.

Turning on his computer, he checks his email and simply scans until he reaches Wyatt's. His eyes widen. The law had him on a list of suspects for murder. He knew that most times, TJY did a good enough job of cleaning things up that no one was ever found, much less arrested, and never convicted. But...it didn't take away the concern.

Jason decides to inform only Reese. No one else need know. They had enough other things to worry about.