"Agent Webb."
Georgina extended her hand in greeting trying not to register any shock at seeing Clay sitting at the end of the table.
Sensing the need for formality under the current circumstances he took her hand and shook it.
"Agent Metcalfe, good to see you again."
Allenby frowned at them.
"You two know each other?" He asked.
"We worked together 3 years ago Sir." Georgina said smiling at Allenby.
"Agent Webb I'd like you to meet my partner Agent Troy"
She introduced Daniel to Clay and the two men shook hands, each sizing the other up.
Daniel Troy watched his partner as she greeted Agent Webb.
The sudden stiffening of her spine, the frosty tone of her voice set his nerves on edge.
George was uncomfortable about this man being here and he wanted to know why.
He gave her a questioning look, which he noticed , she ignored.
He knew better than to push George, if she wanted him to know she'd tell him later.
The next 45 minutes were spent collaborating the information already at hand and going over the profile Clay had brought with him from Tim.
"Well, seeing as you two have worked together before I'm sure you won't mind working together again.
Agent Troy we could use your help out in the field making sure those idiots from forensic do their job properly.
Agent Webb, I'm sure Agent Metcalfe will show you around and introduce you to the rest of our team."
George fumed inside, Allenby was a bastard.
He could tell that being around Clay made her uncomfortable and he relished the thought of finally being able to separate her and Daniel as a team.
A soft tap on the door interrupted her train of thought, her secretary Maura handed her a note and slipped out the door again.
George looked at the note:
George,
Cody's not well, he needs to be picked up from daycare.
Want me to do it?
M.
George looked out to where Maura stood waiting for her answer.
She nodded and Maura picked up her keys and left the office.
"Trouble Agent Metcalfe?" Allenby asked a note of contempt in his voice.
"Nothing I can't handle Sir."
She said with a false smile.
Allenby nodded and dismissed everyone.
Standing outside the office a few minutes later Daniel approached Georgina.
"Cody?"
George nodded.
"He's come down with something and needs to be picked up. Maura's gone to get him now." She ran her fingers through her hair and sighed. "Looks like I'll be working from home this afternoon, can you get Jackson to hook me up to the central feed again so I can access all the information from home?"
Daniel nodded and followed George into her office.
"So are you going to tell me why you're so frosty with Agent Webb?"
George looked at Daniel, knowing that he deserved to know about the situation if only to explain her inevitable hostility towards Webb.
"Clayton Webb and I worked together about 3 years ago on a deep cover assignment, we got too involved in both the case and each other and...."
"Ah so it's a 'history' thing." Daniel said with a sly smile.
"Something like that." George said softly.
Daniel Troy looked at his partner and grinned.
"You play nice now!"
George flipped the bird at him and ushered him out of her office and shut the door.
She lay her head down on her desk and closed her eyes.
Of all the people that Tim Fawkes could have sent down here to help with the situation he had to pick Clayton Webb.
She wanted to despise the man, he had taken away her chance to become a Special Agent, and he had left without saying goodbye and had never called.
It was as if she had ceased to exist the moment their mission was over.
She wanted to hate him...but the truth was he had given her something far more wonderful than anything he had taken away.
Her cell phone trilled on her desk and she answered it with unnecessary brusqueness.
It was Maura, Cody was running a fever and she had taken him straight home, Georgina thanked her secretary and told her she'd be home within the next 15 minutes.
A knock on the door heralded the moment she had been dreading...being alone with Clayton Webb.
'Come in'
She called out as she threw her files into the open briefcase on her desk.
Clay walked through the door, not quite sure how to react.
Georgina had greeted him about as coldly as she could without actually being rude and he wondered if their working together was going to be productive at all.
"Agent Metcalfe, I was wondering if we could go over a few things this afternoon?"
He looked so uncertain about where he stood that she felt a bit sorry for him.
"Clay, it's a bit late for formality isn't it ? Just call me George OK? But if you want to work on anything this afternoon you'll have to come to my place I have something I need to attend to there and it can't wait."
Clay nodded.
"Fine, what time?"
"Well, I'm leaving now so if you're ready we can leave immediately, I have a link-up at my place to the centres computers so we'll have access to everything we need anyway."
Clay nodded.
"Sure, I'm ready lets go."
Metcalfe Residence
Presidential Business Tower
Kirribilli Point, Sydney
It was 6.30pm and they had been going over the same information for the last 4 hours and making no headway at all. George threw her pen down on the coffee table and sighed with frustration.
"Damn this case to hell, I wish I knew what this guy was going to do next!"
Clay almost smiled at the familiar gestures she made with her hands as she spoke; George had always been the type of person that talked with their hands as much as with her mouth.
He watched as she ran her fingers through her hair again, letting the long mop of deep brown fall around her shoulders in a rumpled tangle.
"Mommy?"
The small voice came from the stairs on the other side of the room.
George 's eyes flew up from the crime scene pictures spread across the coffee table and then to Clay's face, the look of shock on his face was obvious.
"Could you put those away for me?"
She asked motioning to the photo's as she got up and walked up the stairs.
At the top of the stairs 3 year old Cody Metcalfe sat on the floor, a curious expression on his face as he looked up at his mother. Georgina sat down on the floor next to her little boy, watching his big green eyes assess her.
"Can I come down there with you now?"
He asked as he flopped himself down on her lap, relishing the fact that his mommy was home for the night.
She had been so busy the last week he had not seen her much at all.
George put her arms around her son and smiled at him.
"Ooh I think it'll cost you." She said.
"How much?"
Cody said trying not to giggle at the familiar game they played.
" A big sloppy kiss." She said laughing.
Cody then proceeded to give her the biggest, sloppiest kiss he could.
Clay watched Georgina walk down the stairs a small boy holding on around her neck.
He had never suspected that George might have married and had children it was not something that many field agents did, it was too risky.
He thought about he and Casey, he wanted to marry her, wanted to do the whole 'happy families' thing.
The only thing stopping him was their occupation.
But here was Georgina, her little boy clinging to her neck like a little koala bear.
She set the little boy down on the floor and he turned around and looked directly at Clay.
It took Clay a few seconds to recover his composure as he looked at the little boy.
He had the strangest feeling he had seen him somewhere before.
"Clay this is my son Cody. Cody this is Clay."
The two males looked at each other and smiled, and George's heart skipped a beat.
There in front of her, was the man her son would someday become and the boy that Clay had once been.
"Hi Cody."
Clay held out his hand for Cody to shake, and watched as the little boy wiped his hand on his pyjama pants and then shook his hand .
"Hi Clay...wanna see my truck?"
Cody asked holding out a small yellow dump truck for Clay to inspect.
"Sure."
Cody spent the next hour crawling around on the floor, making truck noises while Clay helped set up obstacle courses for the large selection of cars to go through.
George sat in the kitchen and watched them as they played. She wished her video camera wasn't broken, it may be the only time she would get to film her son playing with his father.
The 'Hallmark Moment' was cut short by the insistent chirping of Georgina's cell phone.
"Metcalfe"
"George it's Daniel, listen I don't want to alarm you but I need you to take Cody and get out of the apartment now."
"Why? Dan what's going on?'
"Is Webb there?"
Daniel Troy's voice was tense, she had never heard him sound so....frightened before.
"Yeah he's playing with Cody, why?"
"I need to speak to him."
Georgina looked over at Webb and held out the phone.
"It's Agent Troy, he says he'd like to speak to you."
Webb took the cell phone and after a few seconds agreed with whatever Daniel had said and slapped the phone shut.
"George, we need to get out of here right now, grab Cody and lets go."
"Webb what the hell is going on? What did Daniel say?"
George asked even as she walked over to pick up her son.
"I'll explain on the way, right now we have to get out of here."
Something about the way Clay looked around the apartment made George's nerves stand on end.
"Oh my God he's been here hasn't he?"
George asked a horrified look on her face.
Clay nodded as he watched Cody grab his favourite truck.
"Cody, c'mon honey we're going to go for a ride in the car."
Georgina picked Cody up and carried him towards the door.
Clay picked up the evidence folder from the table, Cody and George's jackets and their weapons and headed for the door.
"Troy said Thorpe phoned in a bomb threat a few minutes ago"
"How long have we got?"
"I don't know, but I think we need to assume that the bomb is going to go off in the next few minutes, the bomb disposal unit is on the way but..."
Clay took a deep breath.
"We're almost out of time."
He held open the elevator door as George and Cody scrambled inside, and Clay pressed the button for the carpark.
The elevator seemed to move at snail pace, they watched as the number ticked down from 25 to B slowly, when the doors finally opened in the empty car-park Clay and George raced out of the elevator and to her car parked opposite the elevator shaft.
Practically throwing Cody in the backseat she got in the drivers side and gunned the engine.
They sped across the Sydney Harbour Bridge, George constantly checking the rear-view mirror for any signs of a tail.
They had just reached the bridge tollgates when the explosion rocked the building.
A ball of fire soared skyward as the windows of the building blew out with the explosion, raining glass and debris on the quiet street below.
The reflection of the fireball was caught in the glass of the speeding car as it made its way towards the George Street HQ.
George silently thanked whichever God it was that had been watching out for her and Cody tonight.
She was thankful for the fact that the building she lived in was zoned commercial instead of residential, had there been more than one apartment on top of the building the explosion could have been disastrous, costing many lives.
As it was, several businesses would be hitting their insurance companies for millions of dollars in compensation.
"Was anyone else in that building?" Clay asked as they sped down George Street.
"No, it's all offices, I have the only apartment it was Allenby's way of keeping us safe...he said no-one would think that a commercial property would have an apartment attached."
"A good plan in theory." Clay mused.
"Apparently only in theory."
George said as she looked in the rear-view mirror at her son, who was playing quietly with his truck on the backseat of the car.
"George, I need to ask you something."
Clay asked looking out his window as the wet Sydney streets flew past him.
"Sure, what?"
"When were you going to tell me?"
"Tell you what Clay?"
"That Cody's my son!"
George flipped on her indicator and pulled into a side street, parking the car.
"You knew?"
She asked turning in her seat and looking at him.
"The minute I saw him I knew he looked familiar, it was only when I opened my wallet to get out a coin to show him a magic trick that I saw the photo of me with my mother and realised why he looked so familiar." He looked at George. "Why didn't you tell me?"
"When could I have told you Clay? You left in the middle of the night and never even so much as called me. As far as I was aware you wanted nothing more to do with me, much less a child."
George said, trying desperately to keep the bitterness out of her voice as she remembered waking up to an empty hotel bed one morning and coming back later to find his things gone.
"George I got called out on another op as soon as we wrapped up the Thorpe case, I was on a plane to Moscow so fast I didn't even have time to think. Then when I tried to call you, Allenby told me you had been re-assigned to another division."
"I had, I couldn't be a field operative while I was pregnant, so they transferred me to profiling, turns out I'm quite good at it...usually. But Allenby always knew where I was, Jesus my office is 12 feet away from his, he never said anything to me about you calling."
"I called 2 months later, Moscow was hell. I got shot and ended up in a hospital, by the time I got back no-one that I knew had any idea where you were." Clay took a deep breath. "But that doesn't explain why you didn't try and contact me about Cody."
George looked at him, she could tell that this had rocked his world more than he was letting on.
"I honestly thought you didn't care Clay," She said softly.
"Not care? George I would have stayed if I'd known about Cody....I would have told the Company to go find another Agent to handle the Mikarov problem?things could have been so different "
George watched Clay's face as he turned and looked at Cody, who was still racing his truck along the seat of the car.
"Are you saying you want to be a part of Cody's life?"
"I'm his father George, I at least deserve the chance to be a part of his life. Look I know that there are still a lot of things we have to resolve between us, a lot of anger and hurt, but that's something we have to work on...not Cody. I just want the opportunity to get to know my son."
It was such a simple request, and one she had longed so many times in the last three years to hear.
George said nothing as she looked at Clay, he was being straight with her she could tell, and he wanted to be a part of his son's life.
How big a part was the question?
"I agree," She said finally. "But now is definitely not the time to be going through all this, Thorpe is out there and we need to bring him in, that's our first priority."
Clay nodded.
"But you don't mind, about me being a part of Cody's life?"
George shook her head.
"You're his father Clay, every boy should have one to look up to, now Cody does."
"Does Cody know that I'm his father?"
Clay asked as he looked over the back seat at the child playing with his truck.
"I never hid who his father was from him, I assumed that he would never get the chance to meet you in person."
"And now here I am."
Clay said with an upturning of the mouth that looked suspiciously like a smile to Georgina.
With a quick glance at her watch she started the car and pulled out of the small alley.
One good thing would come of this, should anything ever happen to her she now knew that Cody would always have someone to turn to, a place to go.