Kevin was sitting at his desk when Erin breezed into the office her first day back, he chuckled "Whoa ho ho... is this my long lost partner coming back to keep me company or am I imagining things?" Standing and walking around his desk he pulled Erin in for a hug. "I've missed you Er, and for the record if you ever leave me here by myself again to handle everything... I'll take you out myself." Grabbing a rag from the cleaning cart that housekeeping had left in the department, and running it across her desk he teased, "Here let me knock the dust off of this for you, partner. You still remember all your passwords or should I call IT to get you set up again?"

Kevin was dealing with things the way he normally did, make a joke about it and move on. He really had missed Erin and his job had been miserable while she was gone, add on top of that the fact that they still hadn't found the person who had targeted her and Kelly and it made for a pretty miserable Kevin. It felt like they'd been chasing their tails, they'd get a lead and they'd follow it until it went cold and then repeat. This arsonist had to make a mistake at some point.

Shortly after having that thought he and Lindsay had been informed by their Sergeant that their new priority was no longer the arsonist, but trying to figure out where some POW’s were located in Korea. “With all due respect sir… the arsonist is local and could still be after Er and Kelly. These POW’s are in Korea, how are we going to be beneficial in locating them?” Apparently asking that question had been a mistake because his Sergeant had laid into him telling him that if he was so worried about local cases he never should have joined the JTF.

So for the past month and a half he and Erin had been doing little more than searching satellite surveillance footage and map after map of a fairly decent sized area in Korea. They had managed to limit the area where they figured the POW’s were being held to a fairly small section. They were perusing the aerial photographs of the area when a military courier had walked into the office and handed both him and Erin an envelope. “Deployment Orders.” Was all the courier said before turning and walking out, all Kev could do was look back and forth between his envelope and Erin’s.

Det. Erin Voight

Erin shook her head when Kevin said he had missed her. Truth was it felt like forever being gone; but now that she was cleared for duty the familiarity of her desk felt good. Her arms wrapped around her partner in return. “It’s good to be back.” It was, it gave her a distraction. She hip shoved Kevin when he started talking about dust. “What you didn’t get the munchies and eat the dust bunnies?” She teased whacking his hand off her desk.

Erin knew her dad and Galloway were chasing one angle of the case and Kevin another. Though seeing the file on her desk, she paused. Images flashing back through of that day. Erin tried to pay attention to the details. Things she remembered. Erin had already given them enough to get a forensic sketch in from Nashville. She opened the file rereading the table of contents.

Erin had all the time in the world to search extra stuff on the computer while she was healing. When deployment orders landed on her desk she almost cringed. Great, Kelly was going to love this. Two days after going back to work she was going to be in Korea for an unknown length of time. If Kelly didn’t kill her commanding officer, she wasn’t so sure her dad wouldn’t.

“This has to come some sort of cruel joke right?” She grabbed the envelope with her orders in them and slipped the envelope open with the letter opener. “So which one of us is telling dad and Kelly that we are being dropped into a warzone?” Erin could feel her stomach coming up again. She knew though, they knew too much about the compound and had done so much research of course they were going to have to tag along.

Tag: @kevin

“I’ll have you know missy… that I don’t eat bunnies… dust or otherwise.” He smiled down at Erin… he had missed her and missed this. “Owww, I was only trying to help you clean your desk and I get abused like this? See if I help ever again.” He said as he drew his hand back after she smacked it.

Kev watched her pick up the file and start perusing it, part of him wanted to snatch it away from her and protect her from having to deal with the memories that the file was certainly bringing back. “Er… you just got back… no need to dive right back in to all of that I mean there’s really nothing new, and I kind of thought you might want to enjoy the first morning back with your amazing partner… maybe grab some coffee and donuts… catch up on what you’ve missed, cause we all know you missed me… not that file.”

Kevin saw the look that briefly crossed Erin’s face with the delivery of the deployment orders. “What the?? They’ve got to be kidding me.” Kev was beyond angry at this point, Erin had only just been cleared to return to work and now they were planning on dropping her in some warzone in Korea. Erin wasn’t going to have to worry about Hank or Kelly getting to the commanding officer because Kevin certainly had a few choice words for them already.

He chuckled when Erin asked which one of them was breaking the news to Kelly and Hank, “Ohhh ho no, no ma’am that one’s all on you… and since you’ll already be the bearer of bad news you might want to break it to them that they’ll be in charge of Jordan and Nessa while I’m gone too. Heck… you can tell Nessa that I’ve got to leave and see how well that goes over.” Kev shook his head, poor little Vanessa wasn’t going to take the thought of him leaving very well. The only saving grace was that the girl loved Kelly almost as much as she loved him and the fact that there was a new puppy involved might swing things even further in Kelly’s favor.

Erin chuckled when he said he didn’t eat dust bunnies. She went over to the corner of his desk and wiped it clean with her finger. The very thin layer of dust she tried to stick it on his tongue. “That’s what you think.” She teased as she went back to what she was doing. Erin wasn’t feeling awake enough to shove him back with her hips or do anything to strenuous. Just because she was back to full duty didn’t mean that she was awake yet.

When Kevin tried to get her off the case, she knew he was just being protective. “I have missed you.” She admitted without putting down the file that she was looking over. “But tell me. Why is he going after cops now?” She flipped over the other victims images. “Other than fitting his profile?” She showed him how all the other victims were all similar to her. Then she saw her image and froze for a moment, this had to be something out of a nightmare.

“Do I look like I am pulling a fast one? It’s too early in the morning for that bull.” She admitted when he asked if she was kidding. That was until he told her that she had to break the news to Kelly and Hank herself. “Feed me to the wolves. Some partner.” She was of course teasing. Erin knew that Kev always had her back. Then he mentioned breaking the news that Kelly was going to responsible for his nieces. She shook her head. “I think Bruno could win them over.” Erin replied with a smirk.

Tag: @kevin