Thomas Wakefield pushed open the door to the office-room of the Bureau's headquarters in Quantico, Virginia and walked through the cluster of desks until he found his own cubicle. He was skilled but apparently not quite skilled enough to be allowed his own office. Oh well, he didn't need a private room to look over papers all day. Not many people paid attention to him as he entered, they were used to the eccentricity of his overdressed, over-confident, and less-than-social character and nobody tried to interrupt it unless they needed to for work. This was okay with him, it simply meant that he got to go about his business in solitude. It certainly made the walk to his desk every morning much more peaceful. As he sat he set down the manila folder he had been carrying down onto his desk and shoved it off to the side for a moment as he sipped on his coffee, checked his silvery pocket-watch, and folded up his sunglasses to tuck into the pocket of his black suit; the jacket of which he slid off and allowed to rest over the back of his chair.

Once he had settled in, rolled up his sleeves, and finished his coffee he slid his folder back over to the center of his desk and flipped it open. He'd been on leave for the past two weeks as a reward for getting one of the towns low-key serial killers locked up. The folder was full of details on new cases that had popped up in his absence, some of them were the kind he'd probably get dropped on and others were just being shown to him as formalities. Nothing too important. He wouldn't have any work to do until somebody came by and actually assigned him a case which probably wouldn't happen for at least a couple of hours so he found himself staring off into space and contemplating the case he'd just turned in before his leave. A young man, twenty two years old, psychotic. He'd not seen any man so detached from reality since he'd started working with the FBI, the killer had been murdering young men thinking that if he buried their hearts in his yard they would ward off evil spirits. Maybe it was unethical but Thomas took a certain pride in ensuring that the boy didn't get away with an insanity plea. 

After Thomas had spent a satisfactory amount of time reminiscing his most recent case he pulled a leather-bound journal from his desk and opened it up to somewhere near the 1/3rd mark, then flipped forward a few paged until he found a blank one where he began to write.

[i]I'd sadly forgotten this journal here at the Bureau's headquarters so the details of this writing may be somewhat sketchy, it has been nearly three weeks since anything regarding the case of Lewis Kennedy has been discussed. The young man, twenty two years old, was truly psychotic. The time I'd spent interviewing him had been one of the highlights of my career. At least from an academic point of view. I learned a lot from him that can potentially help decipher the enigmatic minds of future subjects with similar psyches. This young man taught me new things in the field of psychology, however he also showed me something that six years with the Bureau should have done already. I now see that I, unfortunately, cannot save everybody. I arrived in time to save his final victim from his demise, but my reflexes were not quick enough and I did not save him in time. I took the young man in alive, however and he has been tried and sentenced. It was a victory, however pyrrhic.[/i]

Thomas had recorded his thoughts on every case he'd worked since the beginning of his time with the FBI. He had a leather journal filled just over one third of the way. Each case got one to three paragraphs depending on how profound it was for him, this passed one was not very. It taught him new things, but so did every case, this one was simply another fight he'd finished. Thomas felt as though he should hope for exceptionally difficult cases that could teach him more and leave profound marks on his character however he knew that there was no such thing as a lesson without some kind of pain; and the pain that came with lessons learned in the field was often synonymous with preventable death. But that's the job, and Thomas wouldn't trade it for the world.

He read over what he'd written and then slid the journal back into his desk, closing the drawer and folding the manila folder closed again then sliding it off to the side he leaned back in his chair and clasped his hands together behind his head as a way to rest his skull, he then turned his chair to look out at the room. Busy people all over, grabbing water from the coolers, typing furiously, talking, frantically walking around. It looked like any other office building, the only difference was that these people's walking, typing, eating, and arguing were supposedly just parts of some great, life-saving, machine. Yes. Supposedly.