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Kimball Cho was not supposed to fall in love with Michelle Vega.
She was his rookie, the brand new agent in the bullpen, green and eager and so young it made him feel old just looking at her. Had he ever been that young, even when he was young?
He was her mentor, the one she trusted to guide her, the one she wanted to learn from. There was a line there, and to cross it would be taking advantage, so Cho put her firmly on one side, kept himself on the other.
Or he tried to.
It blurred a little when she lied to him. Oh, he’d been impressed with her on the op itself, her quick thinking stopping the suspect from getting away. But then he’d found out Abbott hadn’t okayed her participation and he’d told her in no uncertain terms that he wouldn’t work with someone he couldn’t trust.
He remembered Tamsin Wade saying that to him, back in the CBI days, remembered blurring the lines for Summer.
Funny how it never occurred to him then that he was already starting to blur lines for Vega.
She was tenacious in earning his trust back, ended up at the gun range with him after work. First once, then twice, then it became a thing and he was hiding his smiles and not appreciating the shimmy of her hips when she did a victory dance after out-shooting him.
She was his miracle, the woman who lived when she should have died, the woman whose weight he still felt in his arms when he woke in the middle of the night from a dream he couldn’t recall. She was as tenacious in her recovery as she was in everything else, insisting on attending Jane and Lisbon’s wedding against medical advice, laughing at the speeches, smiling at them all on the dance floor, even if she wasn’t yet up to dancing herself.
He sat at a table at the edge of the dance floor with her, watching her laugh and smile, talking with Wayne and Grace like she’d known them for years. The four of them took a selfie together, all bright eyes and laughter and at home that night, Cho looked at it, looked at the next picture that Wayne had taken of Cho and Michelle and thought, for the first time, how beautiful she was.
But he knew nothing could ever happen, no matter how much he might wish things were different.
Because he was her boss.
And before too long she was Jason Wylie’s girlfriend.
Inter-personal relationships didn’t bother Cho, he told them, as long as they kept any drama out of the office - he’d learned that from the Rigsby and Van Pelt days. And while Wylie was definitely cut from the Rigsby cloth, Cho had absolutely no doubts that Michelle, with her West Point posture and her by the book ways, would have him towing the line.
He wasn’t wrong.
He wasn’t wrong when they moved in together and he wasn’t wrong when Wylie’s suddenly squirrelly behaviour resulted in a diamond appearing on Michelle’s left hand. He wasn’t wrong when she took a few days off and her aunt flew in from Florida so they could go out looking for wedding dresses.
But then Wylie called in sick for the week and Vega appeared with perfect makeup and even more perfect posture and clipped diction and he knew drama was about to call to his door in a major way.
Drama didn’t, but she did at the end of shift.
“I’ve given Jason back his ring,” she said without preamble, sitting ramrod straight on the edge of the chair across from him, her knuckles white. “I’ll be moving out of the apartment, I’ll update my details with HR as soon as I find a place.”
Cho nodded. “Okay.”
“I realise this isn’t ideal with the unit, but I give you my word, we can both be professional and work through this.”
He had his doubts about that but he nodded again. “Okay.”
“It’s for the best.” He wasn’t sure who she was trying to convince. She nodded, just once. “Thank you, Sir.”
“Don’t call me Sir.” He’d told her that at least once a week since they’d started working together. It might have been wishful thinking but he was starting to think she only did it to get a rise out of him.
Her lips twitched and she stood, walking to the door.
She stopped when he called her name. “Michelle?”
Slowly, she turned to face him.
“Are you all right?”
Her eyes were huge, unblinking and glassy, her throat working furiously as she swallowed. “Not really,” she said and before he could ask her anything else, before he could decide if he should, she was gone.
He needn’t have worried about drama because before the end of his sick leave, Wylie put in a request to transfer to Cyber Crimes working out of Salt Lake City. Cho read the paperwork, considered the makeup of his team, so painstakingly chosen. Then he thought of Michelle’s eyes that night and signed the document without another thought.
Things settled down after that, although he noticed that Vega seemed to draw into herself a lot more, as if having let her guard down once, she didn’t want to do it again. It was a point of view he had sympathy with, one he could understand, so he wasn’t too concerned about it. Until over dinner with Lisbon and Jane one night, when Lisbon, her arms full of squirming baby who definitely inherited her exuberant personality from her father, asked him about it.
“Are you sure she’s okay?” she asked, wincing as she dislodged a strand of hair from a tiny fist.
“She says she is.”
She gave Cho a look that he’d seen her give Jane on way too many occasions. It said “You’re an idiot and I don’t have the time or patience to explain why.” Still, it seemed like she was going to give it a try. “I’m not so sure,” she said simply. “She seems sad to me.”
Cho shook his head. “I don’t see it.”
Lisbon shifted the baby so that she was standing up on Lisbon’s knees, facing Cho. Showing more of her dad’s personality traits, she grinned at him, bouncing up and down and blowing raspberries at him. It made Cho smile. Lisbon arched a brow. “You have a history of not seeing things.” He had to admit, she had a point there. “Look, I’m not saying you have to sit her down and have a full on conversation about it, just keep an eye on her. You don’t break off an engagement without repercussions.”
“You did.”
She blinked and oh, he hadn’t seen that look on her face since their days at the CBI. “I’ll keep an eye on things,” he promised and she looked only a little satisfied.
Of course, once his eyes were opened to the situation, it was as if a magnifying glass had been applied to it and all he could notice were the changes that he’d previously dismissed. Michelle had always been serious, but there had been a sparkle to her eyes, a certain sass to her interactions, especially with him, that had disappeared somewhere along the way. She’d lost weight too, not that she could afford to lose much, her face slightly gaunt, her clothing hanging just a little loosely.
But before he could decide what to do about it, they had to go to Washington.
He’d testified in front of a Grand Jury before, not his favourite pastime but nothing to lose sleep over. It was Michelle’s first time so he prepped her on how it worked, what to expect, over a couple of late nights in the office that made him even more convinced that Lisbon was right. They flew to Washington in the morning, spent the afternoon in the courthouse and stayed over that night to finish testifying the next day and, of course, once Abbott and his wife heard that they were in town, they insisted that they come over for dinner.
They had time for a quick freshen up first so he met her in the lobby of the hotel. He’d known about the dinner so had packed jeans and a casual shirt, sleeves rolled up and no tie. He didn’t know what he was expecting Michelle to wear but the red dress surprised him, a short skirt that fell to just below her knees, wide straps and no sleeves, showing off her slender figure. With her hair loose over her shoulders and a jean jacket in her arms, she cut a striking figure and Cho stared unashamedly at her as she walked towards him.
The smile she gave him was quick but genuine, making a mockery of every one she’d ever bestowed on him since her breakup with Wylie.
“Ready to go?” Even her voice was different, bright and breezy, a world away from the staid monotone he’d grown accustomed to.
“After you,” he said, and if he let his eyes drift a little lower than they usually would as they walked, if she noticed, neither of them said anything.
It was a measure, he would think later, of how much he’d grown used to Michelle over the last couple of months that what he perceived as lighter, some still thought as subdued, but Abbott left him in no doubt about that, cornering him when Michelle was in the bathroom, asking him what was up. “She’s had a rough few months,” Cho told him. “She’s coming through it.”
Abbott frowned. “You sure about that?”
“Yeah.”
There was a moments silence. “You sure there’s nothing else you want to tell me?” For just a moment, with the tone of his voice and the look on his face, Cho was back in Florida at the Blue Bird Lodge and he shook his head as much to clear the sensation as to indicate a negative.
“No.”
Abbott looked to be fighting back a smile but then he tilted his head and glanced towards the door, changing the subject just before Michelle returned.
Cho didn’t think anything of it until their cab dropped them off outside their hotel. Michelle had been quiet on the way back, staring out the window, looking at the sights. She surprised him when they pulled up outside their hotel when she turned to him after he’d paid the taxi driver and said, “I think I might take a walk. I’ll see you in the morning.”
Cho didn’t need to look at his watch to know the time. “It’s late,” he said. “I’ll go with you.”
A frown line appeared between her eyebrows and she shook her head. Her fingers reached up to rub her chest as she shook her head. “You don’t have to, I just need a little fresh air, the cab was stuffy. You go on up.”
“It’s not safe for a woman to walk on her own at night.” She knew the statistics just as well as he did.
“In this area?” Michelle laughed and looked around. She had a point too, this was a pretty nice part of town, the FBI had not skimped on accommodation, which told Cho plenty about how important this Grand Jury hearing was. “I’m an FBI agent, Cho, I’ve taken the same self defence classes you have. I’ll be fine.”
She turned on her heel and walked away.
He followed.
They only made it a few steps before she turned. “What are you doing?”
He shrugged. “Taking a walk.”
“I told you I’d be okay.”
“I know.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “You’re walking alone. I’m walking alone. We’re just heading in the same direction.”
She rubbed at her chest again, drew in a deep breath. “I just need a little time to myself.”
Something about the gesture struck him as off. “Are you okay?” He took a step toward her and when she didn’t move, another and another until he was in front of her. This close, he could hear her ragged breathing. It took him back to that day in the diner and his stomach clenched. “What’s wrong?”
He reached out carefully, touched her elbow and took it as a good sign when she didn’t shrug him off. “I get panicky sometimes,” was all she said but he knew what she meant, recognising now the signs of someone fighting off a panic attack.
“I’ve read all your psych evals; this wasn’t in them.”
The words were out without his conscious thought and Michelle ran her tongue over her visibly dry lips. “They’re new.” She bit out the words, looking down. “Look, I’m okay, really. Just need some air.”
“Since you split up with Wylie.” She didn’t say anything and a terrible, incomprehensible thought took form way at the back of Cho’s mind, where the worst case scenarios lived. “Michelle, did he-?”
She got where he was going without him wholly getting there, which was a good thing. Her response, “No! God, no!” was so appalled that it couldn’t possibly be faked, which was also good because if he’d been right, he was catching the first flight back to kill Wylie, Grand Jury or no Grand Jury. As a bonus, his fevered imagination had also seemed to shock the panic right out of her. “Why would you even... he could never...”
“I know that.” It was Cho’s turn to snap. “But what else do you expect me to think? You guys break up out of nowhere, he transfers states, you’re walking around like a ghost, hiding panic attacks...” She took a huge breath, pivoting on one heel and turning away from him, but not before he saw the tears in her eyes. “Michelle, what happened to you?”
Michelle laughed, a sound that carried no humour whatsoever. “I was engaged to a good man,” she said. “Who loved me, who would have done anything for me... and I really thought I loved him too.” She turned back to him then, wiping tears from her cheeks , not making eye contact with him. “Until the moment I was standing in my wedding dress and suddenly I wasn’t picturing him... I was picturing someone else.”
He almost asked who. Then she looked at him.
It had been pointed out to Cho that he sometimes missed things.
This, he did not miss.
He stared at her, stunned. He’d never had any indication - or certainly, never let himself have any indication - that she might feel that way about him, that the feelings for her that he’d kept in a carefully locked box could ever be reciprocated.
But she misinterpreted his silence, crossing her arms around her midsection, looking down. “You don’t have to say anything. I know it’s completely unprofessional of me and I would never have said anything, but we’ve been spending all this time together on the Grand Jury preparations, and then tonight...” With visible effort, she stopped herself, clamping her jaw shut, squaring her shoulders, all business suddenly. “You have my word, Sir, I won’t do anything to make you uncomfortable...”
“Michelle.” He very rarely used her given name. It stopped her short and she stared at him, lips parted, eyes wide. “Don’t call me Sir.”
And he kissed her.
On a Washington DC street, with people milling around them, stepping past them, he cupped her face in his hands and drew her to him, smiling as her hands found his chest, making fists in the material of his shirt. He kissed her like he’d never let himself imagine he’d be able to, tilting her head and sliding his tongue against her lips and she kissed him back, opening her mouth to him and melting against him. When he pulled back, he rested his forehead against hers, noted that her breathing was once again fast and ragged but this time, he wasn’t worried.
He was exhilarated.
Her index finger came up to run across his lips. “You’re smiling.” She sounded amazed.
“You’re shaking,” he countered. “Are you cold?”
She bit her lip, shook her head without ever breaking eye contact. “No.”
“Good.” He kissed her again then slid his hand into hers. “Still want to take that walk?”
“Not really.” She was grinning as she squeezed his fingers. “But I think that’s a good start.”
He pretended to think about it, just for a moment. “I’ve got a better one,” he said and then he kissed her again.
Kimball Cho was not supposed to fall in love with Michelle Vega, and she certainly wasn’t supposed to fall back.
But every day of his life, he’s glad he did.