[He can tell she's thinking about saying something and doesn't mind giving her the time to do so, taking the opportunity to give himself time to try to relax a little; a lot has happened in a short span of time and he's both tense and exhausted, and has to remember to ground himself.
The lights turning on in a nearby building and the sound of people celebrating helps in that, and he also glances that direction; the cheering is nice to hear, something positive in the midst of everything going on, and he can't help but smile just the smallest amount. Not everything's so bad right now after all.
When Ellie does speak, the question isn't really one he's expecting. It also isn't one he has an easy answer to, though that's not actually true; he has an easy answer to his primary job, the real one, but that's not the one she knows about. And so he can either explain around it, or he can tell her the truth, and at this point he decides to do the latter.]
I became an FBI agent kind of by accident. I was in the field a lot with my coworker, Booth, and I didn't want him to have to protect me, so I decided to become an agent both so that I'd be able to take care of myself and so that I could look out for him in return.
[And, because the obvious question is there--]
Criminal profilers are often agents, but not always, and I kind of ended up in that job by accident too. I'm primarily a psychologist, and that's the job I actually chose, because I wanted to help people.
[It's a really simple answer when it comes down to it. There is, of course, much more to the decision, to why he'd felt so driven to help people, and why he'd felt it in this particular way instead of becoming a medical doctor or something, but those aren't things he typically shares and they aren't necessary to answer the question.]
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2021-02-02 04:28 am (UTC)The lights turning on in a nearby building and the sound of people celebrating helps in that, and he also glances that direction; the cheering is nice to hear, something positive in the midst of everything going on, and he can't help but smile just the smallest amount. Not everything's so bad right now after all.
When Ellie does speak, the question isn't really one he's expecting. It also isn't one he has an easy answer to, though that's not actually true; he has an easy answer to his primary job, the real one, but that's not the one she knows about. And so he can either explain around it, or he can tell her the truth, and at this point he decides to do the latter.]
I became an FBI agent kind of by accident. I was in the field a lot with my coworker, Booth, and I didn't want him to have to protect me, so I decided to become an agent both so that I'd be able to take care of myself and so that I could look out for him in return.
[And, because the obvious question is there--]
Criminal profilers are often agents, but not always, and I kind of ended up in that job by accident too. I'm primarily a psychologist, and that's the job I actually chose, because I wanted to help people.
[It's a really simple answer when it comes down to it. There is, of course, much more to the decision, to why he'd felt so driven to help people, and why he'd felt it in this particular way instead of becoming a medical doctor or something, but those aren't things he typically shares and they aren't necessary to answer the question.]