Chapter Six
Janey sat on her bed, fists curled up as tightly as she could make them, resisting the urge to start punching her pillow. This meant that she also had to make sure she didn’t cry either, and that was the most important part-not crying. Crying was bad, crying was stupid and if there was one thing Janey wasn’t, it was stupid. She wasn’t going to LET herself cry, not when her door was still open like that. She wasn’t going to close it, either. No. She wasn’t going to not let anyone look at her being strong. She was strong and anyone could look in and see that. She was strong-so why was she having such a problem trying not to cry?
She didn’t want to fail her captain. She didn’t want to misbehave, she didn’t want to fuck up, she didn’t want to disappoint. She really really wanted to succeed, she wanted him to see how good she was, and she didn’t want him to call her a kid any more. She wasn’t a kid, why couldn’t he see that? She was all grown up and she knew what she wanted and she wanted so badly to just YELL at him, but he was the captain. You didn’t yell at the captain, ever. Unless you were Yang, but...
Anger bubbled in the back of Janey’s throat until her eyes swirled in tears. No. She wasn’t going to let Yang’s closeness with the captain get in the way of her own strength. Just because she had some kind of edge over him... she had been here longer, she was... fucking the captain. Janey didn’t know what the hell was going on between the two of them, and she hoped in the back of her mind that it wasn’t sex... not that the captain would really favor Yang because of sex. He wasn’t that easily corrupted. He couldn’t be, he was the goddamn captain. But it left Janey between a rock and a hard place. He wouldn’t really just favor Yang because she was older, would he? That seemed so unlike the captain, who viewed everyone so equally. He was never making the distinction between Janey and the boys, between the boys themselves, between any of the people... except Yang. Janey had spent she didn’t know HOW many hours watching them together, watching the tiny kisses Yang gave him, watching her laugh as the captain blushed... She couldn’t seem to figure it out. It didn’t make sense-their connection didn’t make any sense to her. And it frustrated her. If she couldn’t please the captain the way Yang did, what was she even doing here? Why was she still in this shithole, in the goddamn neutral zone when she was more than battle-ready and able to kick an excessive amount of ass? She wanted to show him what she was good at, and the only place she was going to get that was outside of the neutral zone.
She jumped when she heard the door to her room creak a little more open than it already was, and saw the captain poke his head into her door. "Knock knock?" he asked.
She fought back a short laugh. "That wasn't a knock," she said, absolutely dead pan. He just raised his eyebrow at her.
"I'm the goddamn captain, m'dear, and I knock whenever the hell I want to. Are we clear?" She couldn't help it then--she laughed, more out of relief than anything else. He wasn't serious, of course. It was the way they had worked for many years now, the fake orders and her rebellion. By many years, of course, she meant four, but it was the same difference, wasn't it?
He smiled once they had both calmed down a little. "I miss hearing you laugh," he told her. "I feel like you're never happy here."
She shrugged. She couldn't just lie to her captain--it didn't work like that. Lying to him would have been like stabbing him in the back. She just couldn't tell him how unhappy she was--mostly because it would break his heart, but partly because it involved him and she didn't want to have to explain why she was so damn jealous of Yang and why she was frustrated and what she wanted to do. "I'm fine," she finally said. It wasn't a lie. 'Fine' didn't necessarily mean 'happy', and she knew it.
So did he. "Nice to meet you, Fine," he said. "I'm Captain Morgan." She shook her head at him, looking away to roll her eyes. Sometimes he was so much like a father it made her want to puke. He just chuckled like he had told the funniest joke in the whole wide world. "Do you remember what you told me when you first heard my name?"
Janey smiled to herself. "I told you that I was underage and that was the worst pickup line I'd ever heard because what kind of guy tells a girl right off the bat that he's going to get her drunk out of her head and then fuck her?" He laughed at that, at the memory she supposed. He didn't do a whole lot of laughing these days either, but he was under a lot of stress, she knew--maintaining the neutralized zones was mostly a headache and a half without the ability to go out and just kill as many demons as you wanted to. Janey knew it was driving her crazy, and when you'd been fighting for close to three hundred years... she couldn't imagine what it was like, except that she figured she sort of could. Demon hunting was kind of like heroin, or what they taught you heroin was like in school--instantly addictive, and made you crazier than a house of hornets. Or something. Her eighth grade health teacher had been doing a little crack on the side--a drug he had neglected to inform his students about--and therefore anything that came out of his mouth was a little questionable.
"You thought I was asking you out." Morgan shook his head. "I don't understand it--every woman I've ever asked to be on the team has had that response. You, Gladys, Yang..." She bit her lip at the mention of the second-in-command's name, and Morgan sighed out loud. "I don't understand what makes it that you two seem to like to butt heads so often, but I've boiled it down to the fact that you're both so alike."
"I'm not a whore!" Janey blurted out, before she could stop herself. She instantly winced. "Not that I meant it like that..." A sharp pain between her shoulder blades made her wince again, and this time she sighed heavily. "Okay, so I meant it like that," she said. "But like you've said yourself, she fuc... serviced EVERYBODY, angels, humans and EVEN demons. What kind of sick freak has sex with demons for money?"
Morgan shook his head. "If you had any idea how much demons are in control of our economy," he said a little sadly. "You would probably be sick. They're everywhere, making deals on the side of the street, selling you your morning bagel, running the trains downtown... Somehow they've managed to integrate themselves better than we have, and the fact that Yang has been so... intimate with them in the past is honestly an asset. It's hard to believe right now, I know, but it's true."
Janey shook her head vehemently. "I don't get it," she said. "How does sleeping with a demon give her better assets? If we fall on hard times can she just cross the borders and raise us a
little ass-cash?"
Morgan just stared at her blankly. "First of all, please never ever say that again," he said, practically wincing. "Second of all, yes, in a way. Not to raise money--that's kind of illegal, well, perfectly illegal, and we're supposed to stay as far within the laws as we can while still getting away with murder. Does that make sense?" Janey nodded slowly. "So the thing with Yang is, she's not well known by her... hooker name, I suppose. She's a smart girl, and when she was young--younger than you are now, in fact--she set up a fake name that she could use. The fake name means that if she wants to get in contact with certain demons who may still be around--I do believe she claims to have tied up Mr. Roberts and, well..."
"Fucked him six ways to Sunday," Janey finished for him. Morgan winced.
"Thank you. Um. Serviced him, and if we keep that information with us, it can gain us valuable insight."
"What, like blackmail?" Janey was now thoroughly confused--how did Yang fucking the head of the demons in the neutralized zone have anything to do with being ahead of the demons and gaining valuable insight and whatever else the captain was trying to say here?
"More like psychological insight. Take his peculiar... kink," Morgan winced around the word.
“Being tied up and fu-“
“Pleasured, yes,” Morgan quickly cut in. “It’s specifically the tied-up part, though, that is interesting. What does that mean about our, as Yang likes to say, lovely but onerous neighbor? What is it that causes him to desire so much restraint?”
Janey looked at him doubtfully. “You’re telling me that the fact that he likes to be tied up has to do with the way his brain works?” she demanded.
Morgan snapped his fingers and grinned at her. “Exactly!” he said. “Exactly exactly. People’s sexual preferences-their fetishes, their kinks-are just externalized representations of their internalized desires, the thoughts they’ve repressed... Take Roberts, for example. The man is a Rakshasa, the leader of a team. He’s a captain, and yet he wants to be died up. What does that say about his psychological state? What does that say about the way his brain works?”
Janey just blinked at him. “You sound just like my sophomore English teacher,” she told him. “Making shit up out of nothing.”
Morgan shook his head, smiling. “One day,” he said. “One day you’ll understand how important it is to get inside your opponent’s head when you’re fighting them. It really is crucial.”
“So thinking about Yang fucking some demon guy is helpful to us?”
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you, yeah.” Morgan nodded. “And her insight into people like Roberts isn’t the only thing that makes her an asset to the team. She’s very good at interrogating, and using scare tactics when asking questions.”
“I’m not scared of her!” Janey announced, even though she knew it sounded childish. Morgan just smiled at her-a loving smile, like Janey was his own daughter or something.
“I never thought you were,” he said. “And I’m sure if I said the same thing about you to her, she would have had the same reply. It’s like I said-I’m convinced the reason you two fight so much is because you’re so alike.”
Janey tried not to glare at him. “We’re not that alike,” she said. “First of all, I was never a whore.”
Morgan groaned. “She did that because of circumstances beyond her control,” he said. “It was a lot harder to be a strong-headed woman with a brain between her years two hundred years ago than it is today. Being an escort afforded her a great deal of freedom to do and say as she wished.”
Janey shifted on the bed. “I mean...” she shook her head. “I don’t know,” she said. “I just... I can’t figure it out and I don’t know why. I don’t know.” She shook her head. “We’re not alike, though. I know we’re not. Not just the whore thing.”
Morgan smirked a little. “It might surprise you to hear that Yang was very much like you when I first picked her up, and that was close to a hundred years ago. She’s grown up, a little-“
“I am grown up, though,” Janey insisted. “I don’t get why you keep saying that. I am grown up, I’m done, I’m good. It’s frustrating, hearing you call me a kid. The boys are kids, maybe-Seth especially, I mean, have you seen that guy recently?-but I’m not. I’m two whole years older than them, and I know you’re like ridiculously old, older than dirt or whatever Yang likes to imply, but it can’t be that much different than being twenty.” She winced. “I mean... I don’t... I don’t know. It sounds weird, but I know in my brain or my bones or something that I’ve grown up. I just don’t know how to tell you that without sounding like a little kid, because every time I try, I get all whiney because I’m just trying so hard to get it across to you. Does that make sense?”
Morgan nodded slowly. “You don’t have to prove anything to me, Janey,” he said suddenly. “I’m not judging you. I picked you for a reason-I know I want you here. I don’t know if I’ll ever stop thinking of you as a kid, just because...” He sighed. “There is a difference between twenty and two hundred. I know it doesn’t feel like it, and if you ask someone like Yang she’ll insist that there is no difference in the way she was two hundred years ago. You shouldn’t think about it too much, really. I’m sorry if me calling you a child upsets you-I just tend to think of everyone on the team as my kid, even if that’s not how it is in real life. That’s what team is you know, Janey. Team is just another word for family-maybe it’s not a biological family, maybe you weren’t born into it and maybe your team members are sometimes difficult to put up with, but they are family, or they should be family. Does that... does that make sense? I feel like sometimes it doesn’t make sense to you, or to other members of the team, but that’s the point of the team. Sure, I hired all of you to help me, to join our cause and to fight the demons out of our city, but while our mission is to serve where we can, our core is what we have together-a team, a family.”
Janey sat quietly for a few minutes, processing what Morgan was saying. Sure, she understood, sort of. It made sense. But in teams, you had organization; you had hierarchy-just like in families. Who fell where? Where did Janey come in? You had Morgan as the captain-duh, of course he was the captain. He looked the part, even if he did wear those glasses that made him look kind of nerdy and almost fragile-if Janey hadn’t seen him out in the field before she would have been suspicious that he had ever served in an army. He was an expert, though. Janey loved to watch him. He was brilliant-he had this way of fighting that look positively beautiful, and she could never figure out how he did it. She didn’t want to pick it up in any way, of course-the way she fought worked just fine, thanks. It wasn’t pretty like Morgan’s, but it was effective as hell, and that’s all she wanted in a fighting style. Just... he looked so good doing it, as creepy as that sounded. He was just so GOOD at being the captain, it was almost sickening. Where did that leave her, in that hierarchy? “I guess... I don’t know. I get it, I do, I promise. Of course I get it.” She nodded vigorously. “I just...” she began half-heartedly picking at the bedspread. “I don’t know,” she sighed finally. “I think it’s being in the neutralized zone. You know? We’re archangels, we were built for the hunt. All this tension makes my wings itch and it makes me crabby and then I say stupid stuff.” She almost winced at the admittance, because who wants to say that they’ve been dumb? But she had been dumb, and she had been childish and now she felt really really stupid for everything she’d said. “I just... I’m sorry. I’ll try to be better. I’m just frustrated.”
Morgan nodded sympathetically. “I understand,” he said. “I really do. I’m sorry you’re frustrated-please know I’m pretty sure the rest of the team, particularly Yang, is just as frustrated as you. I don’t want to have things continue this way-the neutralized zone is pretty much worthless when we’re in the middle of a war anyway. I don’t understand why we have it, but it’s our job right now to man it, and so man it we will.”
Janey nodded, a little sadly. “I know,” she said. “I just... I know.” She smiled at him-not a very bright one, but it was a smile and it was what she could manage. He smiled back at her.
“I know,” he said. There was a pause, and then he glanced at his watch. “Jesus Christ, is that really the time? You should be asleep, m’dear. We’re all going to go put our little friend back on his side of the border in the morning-I need to be out of this godforsaken complex, and it’ll be just what we need as a team to get back on our feet together. We’re just going through a little rough patch, right?”
Janey smiled at him. “Right,” she said. “Just a little rough patch. We can make it.”
Morgan nodded, then leaned in and kissed her on the forehead. “Good night, Janey,” he said warmly as he pulled away, and then stood up to leave.
“Good night, captain,” she said as he left the room.
She didn’t want to fail her captain. She didn’t want to misbehave, she didn’t want to fuck up, she didn’t want to disappoint. She really really wanted to succeed, she wanted him to see how good she was, and she didn’t want him to call her a kid any more. She wasn’t a kid, why couldn’t he see that? She was all grown up and she knew what she wanted and she wanted so badly to just YELL at him, but he was the captain. You didn’t yell at the captain, ever. Unless you were Yang, but...
Anger bubbled in the back of Janey’s throat until her eyes swirled in tears. No. She wasn’t going to let Yang’s closeness with the captain get in the way of her own strength. Just because she had some kind of edge over him... she had been here longer, she was... fucking the captain. Janey didn’t know what the hell was going on between the two of them, and she hoped in the back of her mind that it wasn’t sex... not that the captain would really favor Yang because of sex. He wasn’t that easily corrupted. He couldn’t be, he was the goddamn captain. But it left Janey between a rock and a hard place. He wouldn’t really just favor Yang because she was older, would he? That seemed so unlike the captain, who viewed everyone so equally. He was never making the distinction between Janey and the boys, between the boys themselves, between any of the people... except Yang. Janey had spent she didn’t know HOW many hours watching them together, watching the tiny kisses Yang gave him, watching her laugh as the captain blushed... She couldn’t seem to figure it out. It didn’t make sense-their connection didn’t make any sense to her. And it frustrated her. If she couldn’t please the captain the way Yang did, what was she even doing here? Why was she still in this shithole, in the goddamn neutral zone when she was more than battle-ready and able to kick an excessive amount of ass? She wanted to show him what she was good at, and the only place she was going to get that was outside of the neutral zone.
She jumped when she heard the door to her room creak a little more open than it already was, and saw the captain poke his head into her door. "Knock knock?" he asked.
She fought back a short laugh. "That wasn't a knock," she said, absolutely dead pan. He just raised his eyebrow at her.
"I'm the goddamn captain, m'dear, and I knock whenever the hell I want to. Are we clear?" She couldn't help it then--she laughed, more out of relief than anything else. He wasn't serious, of course. It was the way they had worked for many years now, the fake orders and her rebellion. By many years, of course, she meant four, but it was the same difference, wasn't it?
He smiled once they had both calmed down a little. "I miss hearing you laugh," he told her. "I feel like you're never happy here."
She shrugged. She couldn't just lie to her captain--it didn't work like that. Lying to him would have been like stabbing him in the back. She just couldn't tell him how unhappy she was--mostly because it would break his heart, but partly because it involved him and she didn't want to have to explain why she was so damn jealous of Yang and why she was frustrated and what she wanted to do. "I'm fine," she finally said. It wasn't a lie. 'Fine' didn't necessarily mean 'happy', and she knew it.
So did he. "Nice to meet you, Fine," he said. "I'm Captain Morgan." She shook her head at him, looking away to roll her eyes. Sometimes he was so much like a father it made her want to puke. He just chuckled like he had told the funniest joke in the whole wide world. "Do you remember what you told me when you first heard my name?"
Janey smiled to herself. "I told you that I was underage and that was the worst pickup line I'd ever heard because what kind of guy tells a girl right off the bat that he's going to get her drunk out of her head and then fuck her?" He laughed at that, at the memory she supposed. He didn't do a whole lot of laughing these days either, but he was under a lot of stress, she knew--maintaining the neutralized zones was mostly a headache and a half without the ability to go out and just kill as many demons as you wanted to. Janey knew it was driving her crazy, and when you'd been fighting for close to three hundred years... she couldn't imagine what it was like, except that she figured she sort of could. Demon hunting was kind of like heroin, or what they taught you heroin was like in school--instantly addictive, and made you crazier than a house of hornets. Or something. Her eighth grade health teacher had been doing a little crack on the side--a drug he had neglected to inform his students about--and therefore anything that came out of his mouth was a little questionable.
"You thought I was asking you out." Morgan shook his head. "I don't understand it--every woman I've ever asked to be on the team has had that response. You, Gladys, Yang..." She bit her lip at the mention of the second-in-command's name, and Morgan sighed out loud. "I don't understand what makes it that you two seem to like to butt heads so often, but I've boiled it down to the fact that you're both so alike."
"I'm not a whore!" Janey blurted out, before she could stop herself. She instantly winced. "Not that I meant it like that..." A sharp pain between her shoulder blades made her wince again, and this time she sighed heavily. "Okay, so I meant it like that," she said. "But like you've said yourself, she fuc... serviced EVERYBODY, angels, humans and EVEN demons. What kind of sick freak has sex with demons for money?"
Morgan shook his head. "If you had any idea how much demons are in control of our economy," he said a little sadly. "You would probably be sick. They're everywhere, making deals on the side of the street, selling you your morning bagel, running the trains downtown... Somehow they've managed to integrate themselves better than we have, and the fact that Yang has been so... intimate with them in the past is honestly an asset. It's hard to believe right now, I know, but it's true."
Janey shook her head vehemently. "I don't get it," she said. "How does sleeping with a demon give her better assets? If we fall on hard times can she just cross the borders and raise us a
little ass-cash?"
Morgan just stared at her blankly. "First of all, please never ever say that again," he said, practically wincing. "Second of all, yes, in a way. Not to raise money--that's kind of illegal, well, perfectly illegal, and we're supposed to stay as far within the laws as we can while still getting away with murder. Does that make sense?" Janey nodded slowly. "So the thing with Yang is, she's not well known by her... hooker name, I suppose. She's a smart girl, and when she was young--younger than you are now, in fact--she set up a fake name that she could use. The fake name means that if she wants to get in contact with certain demons who may still be around--I do believe she claims to have tied up Mr. Roberts and, well..."
"Fucked him six ways to Sunday," Janey finished for him. Morgan winced.
"Thank you. Um. Serviced him, and if we keep that information with us, it can gain us valuable insight."
"What, like blackmail?" Janey was now thoroughly confused--how did Yang fucking the head of the demons in the neutralized zone have anything to do with being ahead of the demons and gaining valuable insight and whatever else the captain was trying to say here?
"More like psychological insight. Take his peculiar... kink," Morgan winced around the word.
“Being tied up and fu-“
“Pleasured, yes,” Morgan quickly cut in. “It’s specifically the tied-up part, though, that is interesting. What does that mean about our, as Yang likes to say, lovely but onerous neighbor? What is it that causes him to desire so much restraint?”
Janey looked at him doubtfully. “You’re telling me that the fact that he likes to be tied up has to do with the way his brain works?” she demanded.
Morgan snapped his fingers and grinned at her. “Exactly!” he said. “Exactly exactly. People’s sexual preferences-their fetishes, their kinks-are just externalized representations of their internalized desires, the thoughts they’ve repressed... Take Roberts, for example. The man is a Rakshasa, the leader of a team. He’s a captain, and yet he wants to be died up. What does that say about his psychological state? What does that say about the way his brain works?”
Janey just blinked at him. “You sound just like my sophomore English teacher,” she told him. “Making shit up out of nothing.”
Morgan shook his head, smiling. “One day,” he said. “One day you’ll understand how important it is to get inside your opponent’s head when you’re fighting them. It really is crucial.”
“So thinking about Yang fucking some demon guy is helpful to us?”
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you, yeah.” Morgan nodded. “And her insight into people like Roberts isn’t the only thing that makes her an asset to the team. She’s very good at interrogating, and using scare tactics when asking questions.”
“I’m not scared of her!” Janey announced, even though she knew it sounded childish. Morgan just smiled at her-a loving smile, like Janey was his own daughter or something.
“I never thought you were,” he said. “And I’m sure if I said the same thing about you to her, she would have had the same reply. It’s like I said-I’m convinced the reason you two fight so much is because you’re so alike.”
Janey tried not to glare at him. “We’re not that alike,” she said. “First of all, I was never a whore.”
Morgan groaned. “She did that because of circumstances beyond her control,” he said. “It was a lot harder to be a strong-headed woman with a brain between her years two hundred years ago than it is today. Being an escort afforded her a great deal of freedom to do and say as she wished.”
Janey shifted on the bed. “I mean...” she shook her head. “I don’t know,” she said. “I just... I can’t figure it out and I don’t know why. I don’t know.” She shook her head. “We’re not alike, though. I know we’re not. Not just the whore thing.”
Morgan smirked a little. “It might surprise you to hear that Yang was very much like you when I first picked her up, and that was close to a hundred years ago. She’s grown up, a little-“
“I am grown up, though,” Janey insisted. “I don’t get why you keep saying that. I am grown up, I’m done, I’m good. It’s frustrating, hearing you call me a kid. The boys are kids, maybe-Seth especially, I mean, have you seen that guy recently?-but I’m not. I’m two whole years older than them, and I know you’re like ridiculously old, older than dirt or whatever Yang likes to imply, but it can’t be that much different than being twenty.” She winced. “I mean... I don’t... I don’t know. It sounds weird, but I know in my brain or my bones or something that I’ve grown up. I just don’t know how to tell you that without sounding like a little kid, because every time I try, I get all whiney because I’m just trying so hard to get it across to you. Does that make sense?”
Morgan nodded slowly. “You don’t have to prove anything to me, Janey,” he said suddenly. “I’m not judging you. I picked you for a reason-I know I want you here. I don’t know if I’ll ever stop thinking of you as a kid, just because...” He sighed. “There is a difference between twenty and two hundred. I know it doesn’t feel like it, and if you ask someone like Yang she’ll insist that there is no difference in the way she was two hundred years ago. You shouldn’t think about it too much, really. I’m sorry if me calling you a child upsets you-I just tend to think of everyone on the team as my kid, even if that’s not how it is in real life. That’s what team is you know, Janey. Team is just another word for family-maybe it’s not a biological family, maybe you weren’t born into it and maybe your team members are sometimes difficult to put up with, but they are family, or they should be family. Does that... does that make sense? I feel like sometimes it doesn’t make sense to you, or to other members of the team, but that’s the point of the team. Sure, I hired all of you to help me, to join our cause and to fight the demons out of our city, but while our mission is to serve where we can, our core is what we have together-a team, a family.”
Janey sat quietly for a few minutes, processing what Morgan was saying. Sure, she understood, sort of. It made sense. But in teams, you had organization; you had hierarchy-just like in families. Who fell where? Where did Janey come in? You had Morgan as the captain-duh, of course he was the captain. He looked the part, even if he did wear those glasses that made him look kind of nerdy and almost fragile-if Janey hadn’t seen him out in the field before she would have been suspicious that he had ever served in an army. He was an expert, though. Janey loved to watch him. He was brilliant-he had this way of fighting that look positively beautiful, and she could never figure out how he did it. She didn’t want to pick it up in any way, of course-the way she fought worked just fine, thanks. It wasn’t pretty like Morgan’s, but it was effective as hell, and that’s all she wanted in a fighting style. Just... he looked so good doing it, as creepy as that sounded. He was just so GOOD at being the captain, it was almost sickening. Where did that leave her, in that hierarchy? “I guess... I don’t know. I get it, I do, I promise. Of course I get it.” She nodded vigorously. “I just...” she began half-heartedly picking at the bedspread. “I don’t know,” she sighed finally. “I think it’s being in the neutralized zone. You know? We’re archangels, we were built for the hunt. All this tension makes my wings itch and it makes me crabby and then I say stupid stuff.” She almost winced at the admittance, because who wants to say that they’ve been dumb? But she had been dumb, and she had been childish and now she felt really really stupid for everything she’d said. “I just... I’m sorry. I’ll try to be better. I’m just frustrated.”
Morgan nodded sympathetically. “I understand,” he said. “I really do. I’m sorry you’re frustrated-please know I’m pretty sure the rest of the team, particularly Yang, is just as frustrated as you. I don’t want to have things continue this way-the neutralized zone is pretty much worthless when we’re in the middle of a war anyway. I don’t understand why we have it, but it’s our job right now to man it, and so man it we will.”
Janey nodded, a little sadly. “I know,” she said. “I just... I know.” She smiled at him-not a very bright one, but it was a smile and it was what she could manage. He smiled back at her.
“I know,” he said. There was a pause, and then he glanced at his watch. “Jesus Christ, is that really the time? You should be asleep, m’dear. We’re all going to go put our little friend back on his side of the border in the morning-I need to be out of this godforsaken complex, and it’ll be just what we need as a team to get back on our feet together. We’re just going through a little rough patch, right?”
Janey smiled at him. “Right,” she said. “Just a little rough patch. We can make it.”
Morgan nodded, then leaned in and kissed her on the forehead. “Good night, Janey,” he said warmly as he pulled away, and then stood up to leave.
“Good night, captain,” she said as he left the room.