NO GOOD DEED || S. REID

3.20

    EVEN FROM A YOUNG AGE, Katharine knew that her actions would have consequences. Now, she knew the extent of those consequences.

    "I still don't see why these are necessary," Katharine said, holding her wrists up to one of the uniformed officers. According to them, it was required that she wore them due to the fact that she was an Inhuman. She nearly decked the officer right then and there.

    She didn't need her abilities to take down a fully grown man. Her training sessions with Derek and, sometimes, Hotch proved that well enough.

    Katharine sat next to Spencer, his arm around her waist. She felt boneless, if that was even the accurate word. She had zero energy to do anything, which included being there.

    The officer that she had been talking to simply stared straight ahead, refusing to even acknowledge her presence. She looked down at the orange cuffs, the color almost pulsing as if her actual abilities were being held in the metal.

    "Why aren't we in there?" Spencer asked, bouncing his knee up and down nervously. Katharine put a hand on his knee as a way to soothe him, and maybe stop bouncing around like the energizer bunny.

    "They're just trying to intimidate us," Rossi said. He was standing in front of the bench, back to the hallway and looking straight at the doors they were each to walk through. Katharine thought the whole thing was painfully dramatic. Too many theatrics for a hearing.

    "Well, that's not about to happen," Derek said, crossing his arms over his chest. He too was standing, his glare affixed on the double doors JJ had disappeared behind thirty or so minutes ago.

    Garcia, who stood in between Rossi and Derek, anxiously glanced between the doors and the uniformed officer they had stationed near Katharine 'just in case.'

"I'm not ok with this," she said, glancing once more back at the doors.

"You may not even be a witness," Rossi tried to reassure the blonde woman. In all actuality, if Katharine were not weighed back with the cuffs they'd so unfairly slapped on her, she would have been up and pacing alongside her. This whole experience was nerve-wracking.

"Sir, I'm not worried about me," Garcia said, fixing her glasses. "They've put cuffs on Katharine like she's the criminal and we all know she's not! Don't they have anything better to do than--"

"Baby girl," Derek cut her off, "this is just what they do."

"And don't worry about me, Penny G.," Katharine rhymed. "I've got a great legal team backing me. You just let me and Stark worry about these cuffs."

Garcia continued to look anxious, though Katharine couldn't blame her. The woman barely had to face any confrontation in her office. Being surrounded by screens and shielded from what happened in the field would do that to a person. Katharine figured she'd be okay.

Katharine saw the look of pity on Strauss's face even before she approached their little group. She glared at the older woman, daring her to say anything. The section chief decided to be wise for once and kept her mouth shut.

"Anything?" Rossi asked, looking for insight into what was happening in the room where it happened.

The older woman pursed her lips. She shook her head.

"It doesn't look good," she admitted.

The team looked over at the still-closed double doors. Katharine's mind was going a mile a minute, thinking all the possibilities and the outcomes of these encounters. Out of all her friends, she and Spencer both decided that asking for reinstatement would be out of the question.