Chance For Reunions

Missing Friends

Kate had never been to JJ's office — only to his studio. But she wasn't surprised to see that he had sort of a Spartan arrangement, with the exception of a few blown-up front-page stories from his career, many of which featured Spiderman.

He was typing away on a project of some kind when she entered, and he hardly looked up until she was seated at his desk across from him — though when he did, she could see he was already excited about the story.

Kate set the Air Gap laptop down on his desk with no flourishes. "This thing doesn't have any online capabilities. It just has the info we've got so far — at least what we've been able to sift through." She tapped the laptop. "This is just the beginning, but you know how it is when you're investigating. Bits and pieces here and there."

He looked from the laptop to her for a second and looked slightly annoyed. "If we weren't putting out the fires those telepaths started, I'd tell you we can't just publish bits and pieces without knowing the whole story," he grumbled, almost more to himself than anything else.

"Don't you think I know that?" Kate asked, one eyebrow raised. "But like you said — we're fighting the clock and trying to fix what they made you do. It's not ideal."

"I'm still not going to publish anything that's not vetted and accurate," he said, leveling one finger at her.

"This is all primary source material," Kate promised. "A big chunk of it came from one of the doctors in the program himself. He keeps extensive files on his... subjects," she added with a bit of a frown and a shudder.

"And he just handed it to you?"

"We negotiated for it," Kate replied. She let out a breath and leaned back in her chair. "I'm not a rank amateur, JJ. Even before I took over Bishop Publishing, I was a PI for a while. I know how to fact-check. I'm not gonna BS you. That would be a waste of both of our time, and considering the House is reconvening in a few days — we don't have that time to waste."

"I'll be expecting more as you find it. Not ... gathered up months later," JJ said as he cracked open the computer. "You have a password on this thing?"

"Yep." Kate leaned forward with a sparkle in her eyes. "KateWasRightJJWasWrong. No spaces, and every word is capitalized. Even capitalized your J's for you."

JJ glared at her, his fingers pausing over the keyboard. "Juvenile," he muttered out at last.

She grinned brilliantly. "Well, you are always pointing out how young I am." She waited while he typed in her beautiful password before she leaned back a bit, still grinning. "I would've brought this to you sooner, but you were beating the war drum while the Cuckoos had you."

He almost smirked at that. "Not a bad call, all things considered. I'd rather they didn't know what we have on them until we hit them with it nationally. Don't need prepared statements." He leaned forward, his chin in his hand as he scrolled through the document list, though his eyebrows were high on his forehead. "Thought you said this was just bits and pieces," he muttered when he saw how much material there was.

She nodded. "It is. Believe it or not, that's the tip of the iceberg."

There was no mistaking both the gleam of excitement and the look of pure shock on his face as he kept scrolling through. "This... this story is going to make headlines for months just getting through half of this."

"Don't drool on the keyboard, JJ," she said with a teasing smirk, and he glared at her for it. "Why do you think I was talking about a book deal back when you brought it up? This is way more than a newspaper's worth of stuff if you want it all in one place."