Ghanima sat at the small table and absently stirred her slightly overpriced coffee. OK to be fair the coffee was really good. In fact if she were in any other major city, or well in any major city she would be paying even more for a cup like this. This it wasn’t all that bad was it? She had to admit her days were a bit quiet now. Who was she kidding.

Most days her duties had her acting as nothing more than a glorified security guard. Once every few weeks that switched over to glorified body guard when she was tasked to act as security for whatever visiting politician was here that week.

Her office that was tacked onto the military police barracks headquarters consisted of work that took maybe an hour of her day most of the time. Most of that consisted of simply reviewing daily updates of the national security situation. Granted while this didn’t have an impact on her day to day life, it did overall. So it was important that she kept up. Some of the stuff they dealt with here was certainly on the whole national security level.

Still at the moment she sat nursing her cup of coffee because she had a few hours of well.. Nothing. Even the police presence here compared to a civilian city was minor. But then this was all military and government. One way or another every man, woman, and child had a tie to a person who worked for the government.

Actually in that regard she did stand out a little. Most people that saw here actually assumed she was a civilian. Except for those who knew what to look for. Her concealed pistol for example was a giveaway for some. Even then some just thought her a local police officer of sorts. Well in the looses tense she was. That observation wasn’t technically wrong. Maybe that’s what she would do today. It had been a week or so since she’d swung by the civilian side of law enforcement here. Maybe they had something she could help out on. At least for the afternoon.

Erin was finally out of the hospital. Though she was still on medical leave from work. Well at least from deployment, she was technically back at work but the doctor's didn't want her flying yet. So she was stuffed behind a desk. Hank dad had even made the move out here from Chicago. Sometimes she really hated being her father's daughter. But most of the time, she was thankful that she had him there for her. Sure she had managed to screw up over the years but he made her a better person.

Right now she was living with Kelly. Not that she had issues with it, it was just not how things had started out around here. She'd tried to go the whole independent route, and what had she gotten for it? Her apartment burning down. Erin ordered herself a cup of coffee. She had on Kelly's old fire department hoodies on, even if it did have Chicago Fire Department plastered all over it. Sure it was baggy on her, but she was trying to say warm in the 50 degree weather. The Tennessee air was much better than Chicago where she had grown up, but she was hardly going to walk around in short sleeves.

The nice part about being intel for the local department is she could wear whatever she felt comfortable in when she wasn't slotted to go to the JTF building. "Good Morning Detective" The guy behind the counter chirped. Too early, too happy. Erin took her coffee and slid into an empty table. That last thing that she wanted to do was play twenty questions with the barista. No, that was not on her list of things to do.

Kelly was on shift today, so she had her mind on the idiot who had tried to kill her. He was still out there. He'd gone after Kelly and it was personal. Erin wasn't supposed to have the files but she did, and that's because this was not something she was going to let go of. She had a feeling that her dad was also on the case but that didn't matter. The files weren't with her but that didn't keep her mind from rolling over what she knew. Erin didn't want Kelly looking over his shoulder because of this guy.

Tag: @ghanima

She was looking off into the distance absently lost in thought, thinking about what she had to do the rest of the week. Honestly her scheduled duties were rather clear. Then again that would explain why she had been contemplating what she had earlier wouldn’t it?

Out of habit her mind picked a word out of the air, heard the Barista great someone as Detective. Amusing since Ghani had been intending to visit the local law. Maybe she could save a trip, maybe not. Either way it was something that would break up her so far monotonous day.

Taking up her cup of coffee Ghanima walked over taking a chance. What could it hurt really just seeing if the stranger would chat? Stepping up she gave a small wave and motioned towards the empty chair. She noticed instantly the casual style of the woman’s clothes and was instantly jealous. Either she was off duty or had a very lapsed dress code. Unfortunately Ghani couldn’t say the same about her position. “Hey, Detective was it? Mind if I join you? I don’t want to interrupt anything so please feel free to say no.”

Det. Erin Voight

Erin was lost in her head when she heard a voice. "Oh. Sorry. Yeah sure, have a seat" she offered. "It's Erin" she decided a greeting was in order. At least the Voight's in this town didn't have the reputation that Hank had obtained in Chicago. That would be a nightmare, though mostly out of habit she left her last name out of things. At the mention of interruption she shook her head.

"No, you weren't interrupting anything" she said as an afterthought. She picked her coffee up off the table and looked towards the other woman as she took a sip. What else was she supposed to say. "Is there something I can help you with?" Most random people didn't just approach people at coffee houses but maybe there was something Erin could help with? She was good with that kind of thing usually.

She'd promised her dad and Kelly she would take it easy if she went back to work. So that is what she was doing. Except she couldn't get the case out of her head. The guy who was after Kelly. He was a piece of work, and Erin was almost collateral damage. Her hand was still wrapped up with the burn cream. Most of the burns had healed; but it hadn't been a fun healing process that was for sure.

Tag: @ghanima

Nodding her thanks, Ghanima took a seat across from Erin offering her hand in greeting once her drink was down safely. “Nice to meet you, I’m Ghani. Glad at least in part that the woman didn’t just dismiss her out of habit. But then all she had asked so far was to join her.

She was glad to hear she wasn’t interrupting anything. That at least was reassuring. Sometimes you just never know. Sometimes people just didn’t want to be bothered. “Actually I was rather hoping I could take a moment of yours and talk a moment about your work. I’m a Deputy US Marshal and was going to make my way down to the police station to see if I could lend a hand after this.” She hadn’t gotten a chance to meet even half of the military police let alone the civilian side of things.

Det. Erin Voight

"Nice to meet you too Ghani" Erin was friendly, she kept her personal life personal but one of the locals just had to voice his opinion on the matter. Before Erin had a chance to say anything.

"Aren't they still trying to find that arsonist that lit that cops apartment on fire. I remember there being a big thing about it in the local paper." He pointed out.

Erin cringed. The whole city knew about that by now she was pretty sure. Most everyone also knew she was the cop involved but she was never really talked about it. "I'm not really up on their cases; I'm working with the feds on base but I could look into seeing what they have" Erin added as she subconsciously covered the burns on her wrists.

"People dumping gas on a cop and trying to light em on fire. Got some screws loose if you ask me" okay so this guy CLEARLY couldn't keep his nose in his own business. Erin had known it ha been in the paper but she had no idea it was going to be this bad. Right she could ignore him. There was a person in front of her anyway.

"It gets kind of boring around here, the feds like to throw around their badges at the locals. Makes for some bitter command staff up at the local department at times. Least you don't have NCIS plastered all over your chest. Around here that seems to be the federal agent flavor" she joked as she took another sip of her coffee. Alright Erin, you can get through this. The fire is in the past. Grabbing for her phone she stopped midway and decided not to be rude. No, as much as she needed to talk to Kelly before things got worse. There was no need to be rude to Ghani.

Tag: @ghanima

“Sorry for ambushing you like this, just felt it may be good timing is all. Feel free to kick me away from here.” She knew how important it was to separate your personal life and your work life. Ghani glanced over at the man who just walked up to them and started talking. Big thing in the local paper didn’t exactly narrow it down. Especially not knowing the character of the guy talking. For all she knew, the big thing could simply be a missing dog.

Aha so either this Detective was really really smooth at covering herself around nosy civilians, or she really was telling the truth. In that case, she wouldn’t save Ghani from a trip downtown. But she would still be a good conversation. What the guy said however didn’t stop her from wincing. Attacking an officer was never overlooked. Even if Ghani wasn’t a police officer in the literal sense, she was still part of the overall force. Not to mention, she was a police officer at one point.

Turning back towards Erin once the man left, Ghani winced again and subconsciously covered her own badge. “I would love to try and deny any of that but it does happen. I know it. No reason to deny it.” She had dealt with NCIS before. To say they and the US Marhal’s didn’t but heads was an understatement. “Yeah I am definitely the underdog as alphabet agencies come.

Det. Erin Voight

"Kick you away? For what?" Erin looked confused for a moment. "It's nice to get to know people in this town a bit." Well coming from Illinois had been a bit of a leap to get to the mountain Tennessee town they were in now. Then to top it all off her greeting had been her apartment burning to the ground. Erin coughed to clear her lungs. Though she was back on duty the coughing hadn't gone completely.

Yeah her dad and feds, they got along swimmingly and this woman wanted to nose into local cases. That was going to go well with the sergeant. "I gave up on the alphabet soups" she teased lightly. If she had to throw together the local acronyms that she fell under. CPD now TPD and JTF it was just confusing there was no point. She was just glad that detective cut it for her either way these days.

Erin took a sip of her water but was still coughing as she tried to catch her breathe. It took a her a moment. Oh she really needed to be back at home but she had been stubborn about going back to work. Desk duty but still she needed to be taking it much easier. Erin realized the paper her hand was on was the article about the fire. She tried to cover the image up but if she was going to do that it was going to be obvious. Maybe Ghani wouldn't notice. There was always that. Ha.

Tag: @ghani