James spent the afternoon in the field with Graham, following up on some long-forgotten UFO sightings out in the state forest. For once, he got back to work not covered in entrails or swamp water. There were no incident reports to write up and the case report could wait until later when Graham got back. So he went straight down to the gym to do his previously neglected workout, coming back upstairs to realize the sun had gone down while he was on the treadmill.

This time, he was barely startled when he walked into his office to find Madelyn asleep on the sofa. This wasn’t new. At least once a week for nearly a year, he’d come in to find teammates passed out in his office. It was comfortable, out of the way, and everyone was overtired, so he wasn’t surprised anymore. Madelyn looked like she’d been there for a while, burrowed into the crappy throw pillow with her glasses tilted on her face in a way that had to be uncomfortable. 

James carefully pulled her glasses off and set them on the arm of the couch, then laid the red blanket he’d had for Jenny over her. She didn’t move as he went over to his desk and stared down his to-do list.

There were a few things he had to do that could be done without talking, so he started on those first. Sharon Delgado’s newest email glowed out at him from his computer and he knew exactly what it would be about before he even started reading. James still couldn’t believe they were expecting teams to just go to Boston to pick up materials. Losing Gabriella for a single half day was bad enough. It’d likely require an overnight stay for anyone in Coos County, where Delgado was. 

I’ve put in a complaint on behalf of my team, but anyone else is welcome to join. This is negligence. There is no way we can even begin to make our way through these endless boxes they’re shipping out if they can’t be bothered to send the supporting materials as well. 

And that’s not getting into the sheer amount of files that are now taking up space in my office. 

James looked at the boxes in his own. Three in total now, two falling apart, but stacked to the brim with files, while the other had collapsed in on itself after the corrosive leak he’d finally managed to clean up completely. 

The thought of what might happen when they finished these boxes came to James unbidden and he shuddered, pushing it aside to move onto expense reports that needed his approval. He’d sign on with Delgado for this, absolutely. But he needed to get his work done before focusing on anything else.

Madelyn woke up about an hour later, sitting up and blinking in the lamplight as James was replying to an irritated email about said expense reports that Bradley had sent from across the house. “You know there’s beds here,” James said from his desk. “Multiple beds, actually.”

“This is better.”

She wasn’t wrong. The mattresses in the bedrooms were older than James wanted to think about, and there was no way they were ever getting replaced. Madelyn shifted on the couch and winced, putting a hand to her back. “You okay?” James asked before thinking better of it.

Madelyn nodded as she sat up fully, legs on the floor. “Fine,” she said. “Just hurts.”

“Anything I can do to help?”

“No, but thanks,” Madelyn said. “Hey, sorry I couldn’t go get the files from Boston. I know it turned into a whole thing for Gabriella.”

“That’s totally fine,” James said. “And you picked up her work, it was a huge help.”

“I know,” she said. “I just felt bad. There’s just things I can’t do anymore. And I know that’s just kind of how it is. The sooner I wrap my head around that, the sooner I can move on.”

Move on? “Move on where?” James asked, dread already pooling in his stomach.

Madelyn looked at him, a small smile already starting. “Not literally,” she said. “Just, you know. With life.”

“Right.”

He hoped his relief wasn’t too obvious. “Alright,” he said. “What did you want to talk to me about before you fell asleep in my office for at least an hour?”

“Has it really been an hour?” she asked, pulling out her phone.

“Way more,” James said. “I’ve been here an hour, and you seemed pretty parked when I walked in.”

“Shit,” she muttered. “I need to text…”

She trailed off, like maybe she’d said too much. Then she glanced at James as though he possibly wouldn’t know who she was talking about. But he’d give her some privacy for now. That was what he would want in her situation, even if there was no way anyone on this team would fucking give it to him.

“Do what you need to, then let’s talk for a few minutes,” James said. 

She quickly texted someone who was definitely not James’s housemate, then set her phone down. As she came to the desk, she ran a finger down the narrow rivulets the dripping folder had burned into the wood. “What happened?”

“One of the files leaked.”

She shook her head. “This fucking place,” she muttered, the severity in her voice surprising him.

She looked up, and it must have shown on his face. “Sorry,” she said, the same scene playing out as it had at the meeting.

“It’s fine,” James said, then decided to risk it. “Is there anything – outside of what you came here for – that you want to talk about?”

Madelyn’s eyes shone just for a second and he thought she might start crying here at his desk. “I’m okay,” she said finally. “Part of it is what I came in to talk to you about.”

“Shoot.”

“The tech training they have me doing, there’s another program that they don’t technically require, but are strongly encouraging us to do.”

“Great, sounds good.”

“It’s a paid program that the Foundation linked with. And they require the branches to cover it.”

“I see.”

“I’ll give you the money after payday,” Madelyn said.

James looked at her for a long moment. “This training is for work, right?”

“Yeah.”

“And is it generalized? Like, can you take that and transfer it over to another, better-paying job someday?”

“Not really?” Madelyn said. “Maybe some of the basics, but it’s pretty specific to the Foundation.”

“So it doesn’t benefit you outside of work.”

“No, I guess not,” Madelyn said. “But…”

He waited patiently for a moment. “But what?” he finally prompted.

“But that means that the branch will be spending money to train me.”

“Yeah, that’s generally how it works.”

The gentle sarcasm apparently wasn’t what she was looking for, because the tears were back now. “But if I can’t keep working here in a few years or something, then they’ll have wasted the money.”

James sighed, trying to figure out how not to blow it right now. “Are you planning to leave?” he asked, keeping his voice as gentle and non-accusatory as possible. After all, he was the one who told them all not to stay with the Foundation for his sake.

“I don’t know,” Madelyn admitted. “I don’t want to. And the Foundation said I’d always have a position with them after my accident. But that just means they won’t fire me. What if I can’t keep up? If I’m this bad at twenty-five, how am I going to be at thirty? Or fifty?”

“Then you adapt,” James said, that rare reminder that Madelyn was far younger than him showing exactly what he needed to do right now. This wasn’t a boss conversation, this was an older cousin conversation. He was great at those.

Madelyn looked at him. “Seriously,” James said. “That’s all there is to it right now. You can’t work in the field? You work here, doing tech work. God knows we’re going to need it. You fill gaps like you did with McDonald. Which we’ll discuss tomorrow, that case needs to fucking end. Maybe someday you’re out of the field forever. I know you’re worried about that. That’s why we want you learning all of this tech stuff. Or maybe consider admin, like Bradley. Hell, consider the captaincy. How often was Robin in the field?”

“I can’t be a captain,” Madelyn said quickly.

“You never know,” James said. “The point is, it’s not wasted. So yes. Take the training. And we’ll pay for it. How much?”

“Five hundred. It’s two payments over six months, starting in November.”

James nodded. Then he got up and went to the doorway, where he spotted Bradley making coffee in the kitchen.

“Hey, Bradley,” he said. “Do you think there’s anywhere in the budget where we can shift things around to pay for tech training for Madelyn?”

“Yeah,” Bradley said as he emptied the jar of coffee grounds into the coffeemaker.

“Great.”

Madelyn was still sitting at his desk as James came back in. “It’s done,” he said.

She got up slowly, pressing a hand to the small of her back as she did so. She still looked close to tears, but at least she was smiling when she left.

---

CONTINUE TO CHAPTER 13