AN FBI AGENT

By

Ashleigh Anpilova

Fornell muses on what made and what has kept him an FBI agent.
A Fornell-centric gen story.
Written: August 2008. Word count: 500.

If he thought about it, Tobias Fornell would have problems pinning down exactly what had made him become a Federal Agent. In particular why he had decided on the Federal Bureau of Investigation, rather than one of the other agencies.

He guessed it was a matter of elimination: he'd never wanted to be a 'navy cop' or to spend time investigating foreign governments, corporations, etc. He preferred to work in domestic crime, rather than foreign.

Looking back he feels he'd almost stumbled into a career as a Fed. He'd graduated High School and then college with only the vaguest idea that he wanted to work in some kind of law enforcement.

So why the FBI?

And why had he stayed?

The hours weren't good; although if he was honest for the last seven years, ever since Diane had walked out, taking his adored Emily with him, he'd found the hours had bothered him less. At least they meant he didn't have to spend too much time alone in a quiet and lonely house.

The pay wasn't bad, not unless he stopped to really think about the hours, the pressure, the stress, the loss of life, the being shot at and shooting at people. But these days, since his move to Homeland Security, he was spending less time with a gun and more time with a computer.

The benefits were good: he got health insurance, life insurance, and in a few years he'd get a decent pension. Leave wasn't great, but then he didn't have anyone to spend time off with anyway.

He didn't need to think about what he'd wear each day, he simply donned 'the suit, white shirt and tie' – it made mornings easy.

He was pretty well respected now, kept up the personae of being a bastard; he didn't let anyone get too close – it didn't really pay in his line of work to do so. He did his job; he helped keep America safe. And if he got too tired of his own company in the rare evening he couldn't find an excuse to stay at the office, he knew one front door that was always open to him.

But even with all the benefits, both those directly given by the FBI and those he'd gathered for himself, it really still didn't explain the draw of the job. He could, in fact, have retired already, but he'd stayed. And it wasn't just because if he did retire he had no idea what he'd do.

It was like the reason he'd become an FBI agent in the first place, the reason he put up with being shot at, of losing team members, of being accused of being a mole, of taking life, of the long hours. It was the X-Factor; the unknown; the thing you couldn't put your finger on. The thing you probably didn't even want to put your finger on, not really.

That was why he'd gotten into the Bureau and that was why he stayed.
 

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