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tired out

Mission the Fourth - 'The One Bling'
Mission the Fourth: 'The One Bling' by author unknown
LotR poem fic. In which Flip has cause to worry, a rather frightening artifact is obtained, and Rez handles things... sort of.

Agent Flip Finley woke up.
She felt like there ought to have been rays of white morning sunlight streaming into the room, possibly through curtains of some sort of floaty gauze material. It was that kind of an awakening. Flip thought it was a shame to waste it when there were no curtains for the light to stream through, and indeed no light even to stream at all. There were no windows in PPC headquarters.
Flip rolled off the battered sofa and looked around, blinking in the non-sunlight. Her partner was nowhere to be seen. This was not, in itself, anything to be worried about. Rez was frequently out of the response center-- gathering supplies, visiting friends in other departments, hanging around outside FicPsych hoping to catch a glimpse of Jack Sparrow, who was frequently in and out of the department and whom she more or less worshipped and looked up to immensely-- no, no cause for alarm.
There was a bit of note paper taped to the console. Flip read the note. It was written in purple ink.
Flip, love, it read, have gone out on a teeny mission by myself. I let you sleep in, it’s a really short one. See you in a bit.
Underneath that was a scribbled heart and a letter R, followed by P.S. I spoke to the Hyacinth, or rather, it spoke to me. About… you know. Don’t worry. I handled it.
Flip blinked. She read the note again, but it still said the same thing.
Rez had said not to worry? Now there was something to worry about.

Rez Montrose, at the moment her partner was reading her message, was standing around literally in the middle of nowhere.
"Ought to be around here somewhere," she muttered. Instead of the usual field kit, the agent was armed only with thick gloves, a large pair of tongs, and a heavy-duty plastic bag with odd symbols written on it.
Rez kicked vaguely at what might have been dust. "I hate Generic Somewheres. It ought to be Middle-earth really," she muttered. Then she paused. "I take that back," she corrected herself.
Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a gleam of gold. "Aha," she said, and trudged toward it.
Using the tongs, Rez picked the thing up and peered at it. It was a large, gaudy gold circle strung on a large, gaudy gold chain. The gold shone rather more than gold usually should. Familiar characters were encrusted in diamond around the edge of the circle. She couldn’t read them, but she realized with a sinking feeling that she knew what they probably said.
One Bling to rule them all
One Bling to find them
The words whispered in her ear as she turned the thing around. It needed something to go with it, she thought. Humongous sunglasses, yes, that would be just the thing. And maybe a suit, something in red velour with zebra-print trim--
Rez shook her head, dropped the One Bling into the bag, and sealed it tightly. It wouldn’t do to let any ideas get in her head
One Bling to pimp them all
And in the-- you know what? Never mind.
And then even the greyness of the Generic Somewhere disappeared, and Rez was floating in darkness. The story was over.
"Shortest mission ever," Rez remarked to no one at all, and opened a portal back to HQ.

"Rez, what did you do?" Flip asked, as her partner appeared through the portal.
Rez dropped the bag on the console table and started to peel off her gloves. "What makes you think I did something?"
"You left me this note telling me not to worry," said Flip, brandishing the bit of paper. "My reasoning is twofold. One, no one ever says not to worry for no reason. Therefore, since you did say it, I conclude that there is a reason. Two, the person saying it is you. The prosecution rests."
"I’m having a bad influence on you," Rez said.
"So what did you do?" Flip persisted.
"I got that, for one," said Rez, gesturing to the bag. It was starting to radiate a faint aura of urple. "The One Bling. We should probably get it out of here."
Flip looked at it. "Yeah, probably," she agreed. "But I meant, what did you do about Upstairs?"

Most of the floor of the Floating Hyacinth’s office was taken up by a large artificial pond. Agents stood in the narrow strip between the door and the water’s edge. Rez stood there and fidgeted with a loose thread on her sleeve while the Hyacinth regarded her calmly.
You are late, said its cool voice. The Hyacinth never lost its temper, which was probably scarier than if it shouted. Rez always thought of it as the Vetinari Tactic.
"Yeah, I had a little nap," Rez said, with a shrug. The PG2B2 had taken effect while she had been asleep, and she was feeling unusually casual.
Reports show that you disposed of a Mary Sue by feeding her alive to Reavers, said the Hyacinth. This constitutes torture. Explain yourself.
"She deserved it," Rez said simply. "You did read the reports, right? She killed Wash."
Correction. The Hyacinth’s voice was cold. She caused Hoban Washburn to be shot twice. This brings us to the other issue. You allowed a canon character to die in a story.
"Technically, he was already dead," said Rez. There was a suspicious stinging in her eyes which she mentally told to go away. The PG2B2 only suppressed the memories as long as no one pressed them too hard.
This is a serious issue, Agent Montrose. He could have been saved.
"For what?" Rez demanded. "Saved for what? So he could hang around forever watching his friends, his wife, living their lives and never be able to speak to them? Should we have saved him and then sent him back to Serenity to die again? Or just explained everything very politely and killed him ourselves? That Sue brought Wash back to life just so she could kill him off again. I made a decision not to do the same thing. You put yourself in that situation, and then come back and talk to me about ‘could have been saved.'"
In the minutes-long silence that followed, Rez fished a small white pill out of her pocket and swallowed it. Just a little bit of plain Bleeprin and everything would be fine again.
The Hyacinth, being a flower, had no eyes, but it conveyed the essence of a Look at her. Very well, it said. You have two choices.

"So we’re being short-listed for a special mission," said Rez. "It was that or a month of community service teaching remedial weapons training."
Flip eyed the other agent warily. "What’s the special mission?"
"Beats me," Rez shrugged. “It didn’t say. But after that last one, how bad could it be?”
The console beeped.
"I really," said Flip, split-second visions of destruction flashing in her mind, “wish you hadn’t said that."