Chapter Text
Restlessly pacing the perimeter of her office, Dedra picks up her tablet, deciding to go through the bullet point summary of her quarterly report one more time, just in case. Between her two-o’clock presentation to her Supervisory Special Agent Partagaz and a pre-planned dinner with her husband and mother-in-law in the evening – celebrating her and Syril’s first wedding anniversary that was seven days ago – this Friday carries both professional and personal significance for Dedra.
So far, her day has been unremarkable: a quick, early breakfast with her husband (Syril was very much a ‘breakfast is the most important meal of the day’ person), Dedra subjected herself to the usual jam-packed traffic of the morning rush hour, catching up on all the relevant news in her field of work during her commute to the office and upon getting there, happily kept herself busy with her pending investigations until noon. The first snag to sour Dedra’s otherwise optimistic mood was hit upon realizing that her sturdy old printer by the name of Bob chose the worst possible time to crash – the day she absolutely needed to print out her report in full – and none of her determined wrestling with the device’s connection settings bore any fruit. Every time she entered the print command, Bob would only come up with crumpled or blank pages of Dedra’s meticulously proof-read quarterly report before going radio silent.
Luckily, the pesky issue was solved quickly enough with a text and an email attachment to her fellow Special Agent and best friend Avril Heert whose office was conveniently located just across the hall from Dedra’s. With all too little persuasion on her part, Avril agreed to print the report out for her – all Dedra had to do now was wait for a text informing her that the document is ready for pickup.
Exchanging her tablet for her phone as soon as the latter vibrates with a text message, Dedra is already on her way out the door – only to come to a halt when she finds the sender to be Syril instead of Avril, and the crease of urgency etched between her brows melts, giving way to something far gentler. If Dedra hasn’t told her husband that the day she is to deliver her next quarterly report at work just so happened to coincide with their anniversary dinner at Eedy’s, it was because she deemed their impending meal with his mother to be a sufficient daily dose of anxiety for him in and of itself.
Making no effort to suppress the elusive smile that Syril Karn tends to elicit from her expression with a maddening ease, Dedra opens her husband’s message. Apologizing excessively as he always does on the rare occasions that he texts her at work, Syril is asking her to vet – or to veto – his choice of cakes to bring over to his mother’s tonight.
Absently leaning back against the windowsill, Dedra examines the attached photos with whatever minimal discernment she has regarding dessert. Giving it a minute to make it seem like she studied the pictures in more detail, Dedra proceeds to compliment her husband’s choice, adding a “we’ll be okay” in a gentle attempt to quell Syril’s antsiness that’s palpable even through his texts.
As soon as Dedra attempts to put down her phone, the device insistently buzzes again – this time announcing a simultaneous arrival of two new messages.
The first is from Syril, reading ‘I love you’.
The second is ‘its reayd’ from Avril.
Ignoring another one of her best friend’s usual misspellings, Dedra takes off, headed for his office – but not before hurriedly reciprocating her husband’s latest message.
“Is it ready?” She demands, bursting into Avril’s working space without knocking as he is so very fond of doing when on edge.
But Special Agent Heert only grins at his visitor’s palpable agitation, his amused brown eyes briefly flitting toward Dedra before refocusing on his computer screen as he continues chewing his gum so loudly, Partagaz himself must be able to hear him on the opposite side of the building.
“Good to see you, too, bestie.”
Paying his usual theatrics no mind, Dedra does not stop until she’s stood right in front of Avril’s desk – she has already received her daily dosage of his nonsense over the burgers they had for lunch an hour ago.
“Well?” She pushes nervously.
With an excessively dramatic sigh, Avril reaches for his file organizer, retrieving a document – stapled and cased in a transparent plastic envelope – to hand it to her.
Snatching it from him, Dedra weighs the document in her hands – seems about right for the forty-eight pages worth of pdf she e-mailed him thirty-five minutes ago.
“They’re not Syril’s wedding vows on there – cross my heart.” Avril quips. “And you can thank me later.”
Irritated, Dedra glances at her wristwatch, buying herself a moment to swallow the retort off the tip of her tongue: twenty-five minutes until her report with her SSA. She must be on her way if she wishes to avoid power walking to make it to Partagaz’s office on time.
“What are you so happy about?” Dedra questions suspiciously as she tucks the folder under her arm – Avril’s self-satisfied expression grating on her excessively all of a sudden.
“Is a guy not allowed to celebrate his best friend’s matrimonial milestones around here?” Avril complains with an indignation that almost borders on genuine.
“It’s been a year and a week, Avril.” Dedra retorts, already making for the door – far from fooled by his antics. “Get over it already.”
“About time for the next milestone, then?”
Only at the doorstep does the meaning of those words dawn on Dedra, and if time wasn’t quite so of the essence, she would have gone back to smack Avril on the head with her quarterly report. This time, however, feigning she didn’t hear him will have to suffice.
“Punctual as ever, Special Agent – come right in.”
With her composure kept to the required, effortless maximum, Dedra proceeds inside her superior Lio Partagaz’s office, coming to a formal halt in front of his imposingly large desk – folder tucked under her right arm, hands clasped behind her back.
“Sir.”
“Might as well get straight to it.” Partagaz voices in his usually moderate, neutral timbre, motioning invitingly toward the only seat available across his desk. “Ready when you are, Meero.”
In full confidence of her own readiness – even with a hint of eagerness to detail her working results that so often earns her the mocking remark of the day from Special Agent Blevin – Dedra inches forward. Whilst swiftly, impatiently retrieving the quarterly report she is to deliver from its folder, her fingers happen upon a thin, rectangle-shaped plastic object that most definitely shouldn’t be there.
Undeniably on a mission to make matters worse, the unruly object slips from Dedra’s fumbling fingers, tumbles loudly atop the desk separating Dedra and her SSA and slides all the way across the surface to conclude its journey by falling straight into Lio Partagaz’s lap.
Furrowing his brow in honest puzzlement, Partagaz picks up the object, lifting it up before his eyes to examine it – and every drop of blood inside Dedra’s veins turns to ice the instant she recognizes what her superior is holding.
A pregnancy test.
'About time for the next milestone, then?', Avril had dared to challenge, that nefarious grin on his face even more infuriating than usual.
Oh, she is going to kill him. She is going to eviscerate him with his favorite glitter stapler. Strangle him with that ridiculous barbie pink necktie. Drown him in the break room sink… There are endless methods that she will have to consider – as soon as damage control is achieved.
To Dedra’s horror, Partagaz seems to have no trouble in discerning the purpose of the white strip of plastic still in his hand. The ice inside Dedra’s veins suddenly dissolves, giving way to an embarrassed heat flush when her superior rotates the object between his fingers, examining what is, presumably, a tiny indicator screen.
“I suppose it’s too early for congratulations?” The Supervisory Special Agent intones – if Dedra didn’t know any better, she’d have written it down to what seems like poorly concealed amusement tugging at her superior’s otherwise neutral expression.
“Sir, I– I swear I have no idea how this ended up here. Anyhow, I do apologize– “
Lowering the cursed strip of plastic back onto the desk, Partagaz halts Dedra’s less than eloquent attempts at explaining herself with a gentle wave of hand; with twin infernos raging inside her burning cheeks, Dedra gives the hem of her uniform jacket a sharp downward tug.
“First of all, there is no need to apologize – I do not consider one of my best agents to be so frivolous as to resort to acts of such immature nature.”
Despite it being their obvious intention, the words do little to appease Dedra. Partagaz angering at her was never her main concern to begin with, considering that in all the years she’d served under him, she has not witnessed this calm and collected man lose his temper even once. The potential for humiliation, however? Partagaz isn’t one to hold a silly misadventure like this over her head, sure – but what if it had been someone other than his lap that she’d dropped the infernal test into? What if it had been Lagret or Krennic or – god forbid! – Blevin?
She will get Avril kicked out of the Bureau for this prank. She will give him up to the foreign intelligence agencies – the Russians, the Chinese, the Koreans…
Seemingly unaware of the warpath raging inside Dedra’s brain, Partagaz continues.
“And second, would you please sit down already, Meero? The army stance is making me uneasy.”
Snapping out of it, Dedra does as she’s bid and seats herself – but now the snow-white strip of plastic clashes even more jarringly with the jet-black hardwood of her superior’s desk, and it’s making her stomach churn.
“Now, if someone in particular needs to be rightfully reprimanded for this mishap, you need only give me the name, Dedra.”
The turbulent waves of frustration and embarrassment warring inside her abate. It’s not lost on Dedra that this is the first time since the start of their conversation that Partagaz has addressed her by her first name. Despite the scrawny orphan girl inside her wishfully trying to insist on a more personal motive behind the parent-like protectiveness her superior has just demonstrated toward her, Special Agent Meero had been taught to rely on vetted and verified information above all. The facts. And in this case, the fact is that Partagaz’s own daughter – the best neurosurgeon in the state – is a woman in yet another overwhelmingly male-dominated field of work, and undoubtedly the reason why her boss is showing Dedra such consideration.
“No, sir.” Dedra replies firmly – she knows better than to give up the opportunity to decimate Heert herself. “It was an honest mistake, nothing more.”
The delay in Partagaz’s nod of concession lasts but a moment – more than enough time for Dedra to realize that the Supervisory Special Agent’s astute mind has guessed the culprit’s identity all the same.
“As you say, Meero.”
Dedra’s cheeks flare up again when Partagaz’s fingers slowly slide the test across the table back toward her.
“You better take this, Meero. My wife would not appreciate me accidentally repeating your earlier trick over the dinner table.”
“Of course, sir.”
After a few prolonged seconds of fumbling, the white strip of plastic has safely disappeared inside Dedra’s uniform pocket – she will have to come up with a plan to discreetly dispose of it after her report.
The report!
Clearing her throat, Dedra frees the document from its case at last. Turning over the title page, she is about to begin – but Partagaz interjects again.
“Hasn’t it been about a year since you got married, Meero? My congratulations on the anniversary.”
Thrown, Dedra firmly straightens her back – as much as she might be inclined to write the remark down to prying, something akin to lighthearted amusement permeates her superior’s words again, and that tone is very much familiar to her as being so often employed by a certain someone she will not be speaking to for the rest of her cognitively sound days.
“Thank you, sir.” She replies excessively stiffly – despite the cordiality, Lio Partagaz is still her boss. “Shall I begin?”
Biting back a lingering flicker of amusement, Partagaz leans back in his chair, giving Dedra a wordless go-ahead.
Banishing the quiet supplication for this day to be over sooner rather than later, Dedra channels the entirety of her mental prowess into delivering her quarterly report to the best of her ability – as she has done so many times before.