[Story] Delta – S01 E27

Read Story: SEASON 1 EPISODE 27

♣ Josh ♣

I had forgotten how annoying British accents could be. And Australian too, for that matter, because I was having some difficulty figuring out what nationality Stephen really was. Not having been on an assignment regarding Brits for a couple of years, I was unused to their snobby-sounding voices and was beginning to regret my agreement to talk with Stephen.

But all of that was irrelevant because of the fact that several lives were in danger – lives of people that I actually liked. Most of the time, anyway. And so I agreed to talk to Mr. SIS because he was the only person who could probably help me at that present time. Pretty depressing when you think about it, huh? That my own agency couldn’t come to my assistance more quickly than a foreign one.

We had asked – well, ordered – Bertrand to show us into a room where we could speak together. I could tell by the look on his face that he wasn’t pleased, but the police chief ushered us into a side office anyway. He stayed in there for a moment before I asked him – as politely as I could bear – to please leave, upon which he departed with a sulky look. I couldn’t really blame him.

Now I sat in a spinning leather chair, using my foot to push against the desk to propel myself back and forth. Stephen sat across from me, behind the desk, looking a little irritated, probably at me. I noticed for the first time that there were dark shadows underneath his brown eyes, and that his sandy hair wasn’t actually artfully tousled but slept-in. The way his hand all-too-casually rested at his side made me certain that he A) didn’t trust me, and B) carried a gun.

So we were equal then.

“An American in France,” Stephen began, his accent hitting my ears harshly. “And one who doesn’t speak the language well. Care to explain?”

“A Brit-slash-Aussie in France,” I mimicked. “One who doesn’t even bother to speak the language because he’s too important. Care to explain?”

The SIS agent’s brown eyes darkened. “Enough with the games,” he snapped, which I thought was unfair, seeing as he had started it. “Can we please be serious?”