"No really Michael, thank you. You've done more than enough - everything. Really." It'd have been a lie if Bree tried to play like having her baby brother around was a nuisance, the almost bashful little half-smile that lit her face saying all she just... Couldn't. 'I love you Mike, I've missed you. I hate that I only see you Christmas and Easter - if I'm lucky. I hate that the woman you love thinks I'm low-rent white trash, a reminder of a place she wants to pretend you never came from too. And I hate that I can't change that.'

"And thanks for watching Riddick too," she said softly, cuddling the enormous ebony cat in her arms just a little closer to her chest, ignoring the ache beneath the dressings as she bent to kiss the top of his great, fuzzy head. The young woman sank slowly into one of her kitchen chairs, leaning back with a soft sigh, just so glad to be home again.

Well, even if home wasn't much more than a small, one bedroom studio apartment, all exposed brick and industrial, easy-to-clean and maintain, just like she liked to her little piece of the world. Low maintenance, little to mind, everything streamlined and in its place. No doubt some psychoanalyst would have a field day with this little... Quirk? Something about how order kept the chaos at bay. The more of her world she controlled, the less the risk for anything untoward, anything unpredictable, anything uncontrollable or hideously random could ever come from the clear blue sky.

Heh. See how well that had worked out?

A little more than two weeks ago, she'd taken a ricocheted bullet off her witness' brain pan, straight to her unprotected chest. There were just so many things that should have never happened that day, what she remembered of it at least , what she had oh-so-meticulously pieced together of those seconds that had changed her whole life while counting the tiny holes in a single rectangle of white drop ceiling above her. Nothing had been like it should have been, now was it?

Giving Victor her vest - that had been dumb, considering where the bullet wound up after all. But it had just been a... A reassuring thing really, she'd hoped. Anything to get him to stop all the waterworks, to feel a little better. Because any snipers should have long-since cleared out in the face of two separate FBI SWAT, yet they [oh-so] obviously had not. But she might have caught on faster, might have picked up somehow or other on the danger waiting outside, if she hadn't been so distracted inside by the green-eyed man. She should have... Done something. Seen something. Felt something that to this very moment remained more so infuriatingly elusive that she'd shed frustrated tears all alone in the night, staring up at the hospital room ceiling and giving herself the most painful headaches, a frisson of agony shooting through her chest as she sobbed, and then tried like hell not to.

But it was no less than she deserved.

Her assumption, her sloppiness, had gotten her shot after all. It was inexcusable incompetence had gotten Victor dead.

But that was an internal indictment - the only kind that really counted in the end. Not a single one of the internal investigations that had been initiated said as much of course, or lay blame exactly where she knew it belonged. Words like 'unavoidable' and 'act of God' and 'unpredictable incident' irked the ever-loving shit out of, right up there with 'unbelievably lucky' and 'angels watching over you' and 'nothing less than a miracle.'

Not that she could blame them, the doctors and the surgeons and the nurses. Not really. They'd busted their asses to make it all right, to somehow get that piece of shredded hollow point out of her chest, to close her up One eight of an inch from her aorta, they said. One eighth of an inch away from certain death, bleeding out long before even the fastest ambulance in Richmond would have gotten to her.

"Not a thing Bree, you know that," Michael said, leaning over to caress the top of the black cat's soft head, behind the ears the way all cats like as the motorboat of a purr revved up. A real ginger, her brother, with their father's deep blue eyes, corners all crinkled with a sweet, familiar smile. "I think the big guy's actually started to like me a little. Well you know, after we got that whole 'pissing on my gym bag' thing out of the way the first day."

Bree laughed, though it hurt. "Yeah, he's a little... Ah... 'Territorial.' Something like that."

Michael looked down at his big sister, studying her thoughtfully for a moment. "You don't have to go back to work though, you know. Just, well... Take some time off. Come stay with me and Lyndsay." He laughed, shrugging his shoulders helplessly. "Riddick too. It'll be fun. Hey, watching her break out in hives would make you smile - c'mon now, don't deny it!"

Bree laughed even harder, wincing this time with the pain. "You know you're the best Michael," she said when she could finally catch her breath again, or something really, really close. She'd turned down the offer of the oxycodone prescription, not wanting to let any of that vaunted control slip through her fingers - not even for a drug that could take the edge off this pain. Bree had the feeling she'd begin to regret that choice, somewhere deep in the night when she hadn't been able to sleep for hours. But for now? For now, she knew damn well she had it coming.

"Yeah, you are but no... I have to clean some shit up at work, you know, reports and briefings and all that."

[i]Identifying that green-eyed man. Figuring out what the hell he had to do with Victor's death - and he did. I don't know how, I don't know why, or what the hell he managed to pull off - but I will. Damn straight, I sure will...[/i]

"Besides, the minute Riddick pisses on some Prada shoes, falls asleep inside a Coach bag or sharpens his claws on one of those 'real antique' Queen Anne chairs? Yeah, our welcome will be worn thin - and so will yours, for sure. I don't think 'irreconcilable feline differences' is a real thing on divorce papers." She winked at her brother mischievously.