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Faridah remembers the wariness about Sarif’s new recruit. Some cop who got kicked out of SWAT. Politics and some kind of orders mess, Lund had said in the cafeteria. Frank grimaced and replied, Probably some idiot who wants to push his weight around. We all know why he was really hired, anyway. And they tried not to look across the room at Megan, who apparently had History with their soon-to-be-new-guy.
So it was surprising, the quietness. Jensen just kind of slipped into SI, the silent figure in corners like just another shadow - the guy’s fondness for black didn’t help - and then never left.
The first time she flew him out was to check up on what looked like an industrial espionage operation out at one of the plants. He shook her hand before introducing himself with a voice like he’d spent a month chewing on gravel. The impression she got was… quiet, but not standoffish. Just focused, trying not to waste her time. Maybe boring, maybe not, she wasn’t certain. It depended on whether he managed to impress her.
He spent most of the journey checking his notes, as far as she could tell, or silently watching Detroit go by. He said thanks before he hopped out of the VTOL, like she was doing him a favour, even though it was her job.
When he came back to the helipad, tucking a pocket secretary into that long coat - she’s still curious about just how many compartments and holsters he’s got in there; she tried to count every time they met and never managed to get them all - she asked him how it’d gone.
“False alarm,” he said. “I talked him down. I’ve got everything he was going to give to TYM. He’s down at the precinct.”
“Huh.”
He caught her questioning look. “Guns-blazing tends to create more questions than answers,” he said, head bowed while he buttoned a pocket and adjusted some buckle she hadn’t even noticed. “And it wouldn’t look good to get anyone killed while I’m on Sarif’s books.”
“So you’re not one for starting fights?” she said, as they took their respective seats.
He settled in behind her, and his words were quiet enough she nearly missed them. “Thought I got hired to finish them.”
“Point,” she said, with the hint of a laugh.
The third time she took him out, to some meeting at Sarif’s favourite factory, she made a crack about the utilicoat while they were walking to the VTOL. That finally got a smile out of him. He looked like someone else - or maybe more like himself - then, and for a second she maybe understood why Megan could’ve been interested. Just appreciating the scenery, though; that seemed like a whole load of complication she wasn’t in the mood for.
The fourth time, it was her third flight of the day and she was running on maybe five hours’ sleep in two days. When they got back to SI, he asked her with what looked like real concern if she was all right, and they ended up talking as they walked back from the helipad and grabbed something to eat, somehow drifting into the cafeteria together. Too tired to think about it much, she guesses now. And then it just… kept happening every so often.
Sure, he kept himself to himself, but for a guy who specialised in being unnoticeable, he didn’t always succeed. It’s weird being in the cafeteria without a figure in a sweater at the corner table keeping an eye on the room, or sometimes pretending not to battle with the vending machines. Yeah, the sweet tooth was surprising, too. The only time she’s ever seen him look close to sheepish was when she caught him slipping a candy bar into the trench.
She remembers the night when they both stumbled bleary-eyed back into SI. The place was abandoned except for a few lights in R&D. Adam was dead on his feet and not doing a good job of pretending otherwise, hollow-eyed and with the beard getting stubbly round the edges, but she was worse. She fell asleep on one of the waiting couches by her office without realising it, after twenty hours straight on the job. Usually she’s better than that, but things had been getting heavy with TYM. She hasn’t pulled a shift like that since.
She woke up with something tucked round her, and it was long enough and warm enough it might as well have been a blanket. Took her a second to realise it was a way-too-expensive trenchcoat. Huh. Silk-lined. Nice.
She dropped it by his office later, and he shrugged and acted like it was nothing, said she’d been shivering. “You’re a good guy, Jensen,” she said, and he shrugged that off too, the kind of slightly tense that meant he was embarrassed and maybe flattered and trying not to show it. She knew him well enough to see it by then.
She misses a laugh like sandpaper and the occasional desert-dry joke. She misses a coffee being put next to her when he got one of his own. She misses being next to someone who’d call Sarif on his bullshit, albeit mostly when the boss couldn’t hear.
They chewed him up and spat him out, Sarif said, after the attack. We had to do a lot. When he comes back, he’ll be different than you remember. But you’re a professional, Faridah. I know you won’t make it awkward.
A bunch of meat and tubes, Frank said, after a trip down to the clinic to talk about… something about HUD programming. She doesn’t know. All she knows is he was too quiet, for Frank. So his overall usefulness hasn’t changed. But before he shut it all away, his eyes were sad, and wrong.
She feels the empty space by the vending machines, and she doesn’t look at his office on the way past. She wonders if Jensen ever expected anyone to notice he’d gone. She’s guessing not.
She remembers the card she put in the p-mail. Get well soon didn’t seem like nearly enough. Still, she thinks it. Don’t be too long, Jensen.