Annette Harper Paquet

[Jelly]

Written: 9/2/2011

×A N N E T T E [H A R P E R] P A Q U E T×

" Your crusade's a disguise
Replace freedom with fear
You trade money for lives"

-If We Catch A Criminal-

-When We Catch A Criminal-

×There's Nothing We Can Do×

Name: Annette Harper Paquet – though only a few can call her by her first name and have her answer; she prefers Paquet for all coworkers, and Harper otherwise.
Age: 35 years old
Gender: Female
Height: Five feet, seven inches
Weight: 123 pounds
Position: Chief of Police
Gift: None – unless her skill in tuning out everything but what she wants to focus on is a gift… Okay, not really.

×But Play Cops And Robbers×

Likes:

x. Coffee – she’s a little addicted… maybe (she’ll never admit it though).
x. Men – not that she has time for them with her focus on the police department.
x. Sarcasm – it’s her favorite weapon, by far, and she’s quite skilled with it.
x. Big boots – they’re comfortable, functional, and add a few inches (though she doesn’t have to worry about that, it’s a nice advantage), why wouldn’t she like them?
x. Dark chocolate – especially when raspberries are involved as well.
x. No-nonsense people – just her cup of tea, err, coffee. Can’t go wrong with someone’s who’s all business.
x. Loud music – almost any genre, though she avoids rap, screamo, techno, and similar kinds. It’s a common sight for her to be blasting music through headphones whenever she’s stuck in her office doing paperwork.

Dislikes:

x. Busybodies – people just need to mind their own business, thank you very much.
x. Detectives – basically anyone trying to handle the law without being part of the police department, from employees or partners of The Agency to freelancers. She tends to call them “hired help.”
x. Unmotivated people – if you don’t have a reason for doing something that needs to be done, or are perfectly happy rotting at the bottom of the trash heap, you’re not worth the time of day to her.
x. Strawberries – she’s allergic, not much more reason is needed for that, is there?
x. Smokers – they just irritate her.

Best Qualities:

x. Determined – nothing can stop her once she sets her mind on something.
x. Undyingly loyal – once someone earns her trust, of course.
x. Resourceful – she’s skilled at using what’s around her to help her, whatever she might need it for.
x. Skilled with a gun and hand-to-hand combat – looots of training and practice has gone into both, and she never wastes an opportunity to improve.
x. Charismatic – simply, being in charge suits her. And she’s good at it, however rough she might be around the edges.

Worst Qualities:

x. Sarcastic and rather rude – while she can hold her tongue when she absolutely has to, it’s still a feat when she does.
x. Underestimates people – often, sadly. She likes to think they’re not as smart or skilled or strong as she is (even if she won’t admit it), and has to face the consequences when she’s wrong.
x. Constantly on the job – as in, she’s always trying to figure out and close cases, always on the look-out for things she can get involved in that can boost both her own image and the police department’s, and is desperate to follow any lead that can help her rebuild it.
x. Cynical – while she would like to believe that things can always get better, the cold hard facts often wipe out whatever optimistic views she might have.
x. Can’t hold her liquor very well – except that’s a closely-guarded secret, she wouldn’t want someone plying her with drinks to (gasp) loosen her up.

Fears:

x. Coming down with some kind of incurable disease – if she has to go out, she’d like to go out fighting, not stuck in a hospital bed.
x. Losing her brother – she’s already come close enough.
x. All the work she’s spent on the police department going to waste – she absolutely cannot accept anything but rebuilding the department.
x. Ever being manipulated – she has to be the one in charge, not the one being ordered around on someone else’s whim.

Dreams:

x. Running The Agency into the ground – what? Not all dreams are positive ones.
x. Putting away some of the bigger faces of crime in Vesper – they may not be organized, but there are still the bigwigs out there that could make an impression.

Habits:

x. Tapping her foot – and drumming her fingers while she’s sitting; perhaps she’s just impatient with the world, always waiting for something to happen.
x. Zoning out – whenever she’s bored with a situation, or even simply frustrated (for example: while some unambitious, going-nowhere police officer who can’t get a single thing done right tries to build a case for why she shouldn’t fire them), she tends to simply let everything else fade away and let her thoughts wander. This has never helped her stake out skills…
x. Chewing on the ends of pens – she tends to chew gum often to keep herself from doing so, but she’s not always successful.

×
Tattoos: Tribal phoenix on her left shoulder blade – though only a few know it’s there.
Hair Color Dark brown to black, depending on the lighting (and whether or not it’s wet). She wears it long, but more often than not it’s up in a ponytail – though never a bun – to keep it out of the way.
Eye Color: Green
Markings: She has numerous little scars from being a rather tomboy-ish girl growing up and the fact that she doesn’t think much of the consequences of some things before going through with them. The most obvious scar is one almost all the way down (and partially curved around) the back of her calf, which she got while climbing and jumping over a fence chasing after a suspect on the run – she just wasn’t expecting to get caught on a loose bit of wire from the fence on the other side.

×Catch A Revolution×

Personality:

Paquet is a rather difficult person to get to know. While she has no problems socializing, she refuses to open up to people until they’ve proved themselves to her in some way, and sarcasm and similar tactics are her best defense against giving in and getting to know someone before that happens. Now, most of the time her comments are harmless… but not even she can deny that she’s extremely judgmental and has no qualms with pointing out someone’s imperfections. In fact, while she’s more tactful to those she actually cares about, she may even pick at them more than she does the general populace. After all, if they can’t take hearing it from her, what’re they going to do when someone who doesn’t really care about them brings it up? Her brother is a very obvious exception to this, and one that everyone knows about – not that Paquet herself will admit it. Preferential treatment isn’t fair, and of course, she can’t be unfair while trying to run the entire police department, right? Right. And anyone who says otherwise had better run for the hills.

Unfortunately for those around her, along with her sharp tongue and quick judgments, she also has a horrible temper, including a very short fuse. However, depending on the offense, she can range anywhere from mildly annoyed (or frustrated) and mildly amused at the same time, to just short of screaming in your face, you better run if you know what’s good for you, if you work for her you’re fired ten minutes ago and she’ll ruin you in any career field she can, and if you don’t work for her she’ll make your life hell – and then she doesn’t have to worry about treating you with the small good grace she’d treat a former employee – pissed off. And, sadly, she’s not above using a little bit of physical force (as long as there’s no consequences for her later or – and sometimes even when there is). She’s a force to be reckoned with, and a force to be feared; at least, she likes to believe that.

Fortunately, she’s not aaall sarcasm and stinging wit and insults and dreadful temper. She really, deeply cares for the police department she runs – those who are loyal to it like she is are almost as much family to her as her brother is (and, sadly, more family to her than her mother is), and she will do almost anything for them. It’s the slackers and the people who have just accepted that The Agency is taking over that make her blood boil, and she doesn’t care to hide it. But when she’s not focused on rebuilding and forwarding the police department – which is very rarely, but possible – she can even be a pleasant person to be around, a social butterfly of sorts. She knows how to charm a crowd, or even just one other person, and she knows it. While she may seem like a completely different person from her usual, harsher attitude, the fact is that she’s probably simply controlling herself. That’s not to say that she cannot become actually interested and investing in a conversation, but it is rare for someone to truly draw her attention so far from her passion.

And if a socialable Paquet may seem like a different person, a truly happy, content, gentle, or even vulnerable Paquet is simply unbelievable to many. Yet, she does exist, just buried deep down beneath everything else. There are very few people that ever see this part of her, the main one being her brother – giving him plenty of reason to defend her against their coworkers. The other is her ex husband, though she hardly sees him anymore, much less speaks to him. She simply prefers not to give other people the power over her of seeing her with her guards up. It’s easier to focus on what she wants, and get it, without doing that.

×Now Your Waging War Again×

Appearance:

Paquet can be a rather imposing person, just by looking at her. Although, it can’t quite be because of her height. While she rests on the taller side of the spectrum, there are many who put her five foot seven to shame (and she dislikes looking up to anyone, so while it’s not an issue, she dislikes her height). Add in the fact that she’s naturally slim – though definitely well built, as she’s spent many, many hours in her lifetime exercising specifically to build herself up despite the natural shape of her body – and she doesn’t seem all that threatening, really. Rather, how she carries herself seems to affect people a lot more than her physical appearance. Her no-nonsense, sharp-tongued attitude is obvious in every step she takes, every glance she casts (her eyes the kind that don’t even try to hide the fact that she’s most often studying you, looking for faults and weaknesses), she makes sure of it.

Even while she plays up the advantages of her body shape with the small bits of attention she pays to ‘the latest fashions,’ she still tends to stick to the normal jeans routine – or slacks when she needs to dress up. Skirts and dresses are out of the question, almost forbidden from her wardrobe altogether. Only rare, rare occasions can account for Paquet in a dress. She prefers functional wear, things she can move in, even though she has to keep in mind the fact that she’s a ‘face’ for the police department and has to look the part for the public as well. Though, in Paquet’s opinion, they should prefer the image of a hard-working, comfortable and ready policewoman over any suit-and-tie type of businessman for their safety. However, when she must dress up, she must – she won’t jeopardize the police department’s image for her own personal opinion in that field, at least.

×Marching On The Spot×


Key Experiences:

Born and raised right here in Vesper, Paquet was born to a father who was a prominent, powerful lawyer, though not necessarily a very popular one. He was a criminal defense lawyer, you see, and a corrupt one at that. He was just skilled enough not to let his family and the general public know that, even when it was almost common knowledge among the ‘underground.’ It was especially known to the small little drug gang he dealt with most often, as he got their more important members off easy and received a nice little cut of product himself in payment, along with a bit of money.

Her mother, on the flip side, was quite the popular figure, but she was hardly of any real use to anyone, even as a mother. She was a trophy wife, really, a social butterfly that loved to indulge herself and spend her husband’s money but, honestly, never really knew how to raise children of her own. Thankfully for Paquet and her older brother (by two years – enough that she absolutely adored and idolized him, and that he found her amusing and endearing rather than annoying, most of the time), they were raised by a family friend that easily took the role of babysitter. Neither parents paid their children much mind, and so, once Paquet reached the age that she really noticed and cared, she decided to do everything she could to make them notice.

Thankfully, along with a heavy rebellious phase (muted by Charlie’s efforts, who had long given up on approval from their parents), she put most of her energy into her schoolwork, thinking that if she excelled, they’d have to notice her. In a small way, it worked. That small way being that she earned simple congratulations and the novelty of being bragged about in when company was around, but the whole living situation changed very little. Though she reached a point where her frustration with it all was enough for her to completely give up on her classes (hoping that maybe the change would be enough to illicit some real notice), Charlie managed to talk her back into focusing on it all again. His encouragement was that the better she did, the more likely she’d be able to leave them behind when she was done with school, which was his stance on the matter.

It was Paquet’s senior year of high school, winter more specifically, when her father went missing. The family was thrown into turmoil (most caused by her mother), but there was little they could do. That is, until the day a few weeks later when he turned up again. However, all they could do then was prepare a funeral and figure out how the family would function without him – which even Paquet will admit was more a worry of money than anything else, not that she didn’t mourn her father’s death. Her feelings of loss were marred by the fact that those who had killed him (a small drug gang he had cheated, who had gotten even) made public why, and how the lawyer had been conducting himself for years. Her mother fell into denial and depression about the whole thing, inconsolable, but Paquet set her mind to trying to figure out how to keep the family afloat.

She found her answer, as she often did, in her brother. Charlie had already begun working for the local police department, straight out of high school. And while this had caused tension between him and his father (the man just had a dislike of cops – three guesses why), he had pursued it anyways, and had found a passion in it. Following his footsteps, and having him pull a few strings, Paquet jumped into the field as well. After graduating and working full time, she grew to love the job as well, however menial and taxing it was to start at the bottom.

She worked her way up quickly through the following years, easily putting to use the ambition she had cultivated through all her years in school. Both she and Charlie helped to support their mother, who had little left in her life and still refused to try and settle for getting a job of her own and ‘falling to that level after everything she and Devin had gone through to get so high in society’ and had taken up her husband’s dislike for the police department. Though, Paquet noticed, she never refused a cent of money from her children.

Quite a few years into her police career, Paquet signed herself up for a self-defense class in hopes of improving her hand-to-hand skills – though she had quickly come along as a good shot. That simple decision led from group classes to more intense one-on-one classes, to lunches and dinners and nights out, to long nights in, and an easy relationship that soon landed her married. She didn’t change her last name, for professional purposes, but – even if the idea seems impossible to some of her coworkers now – Paquet certainly had fallen head over heels for Paxton, her instructor. They had a rather simple, easily relationship, one that was completely unrelated to her work, unlike everything else in her life. It was for that reason that Paxton didn’t often deal with the intimidating force that Paquet could be. And at that time, while she was still focused on her work and ambitious, she wasn’t as single-mindedly driven as she is now, which made things only easier between them.

It wasn’t until after her brother was gunned down that that all changed. Paquet and Charlie had actually both been called to the same scene: a small, run-down house close to the edge of town where an armed man had supposedly holed away with a young woman he had kidnapped. Unfortunately, they weren’t the only ones to arrive on the scene. A freelance detective that had been hired by the woman’s family heard the call (how, she still doesn’t know for sure) and decided to try his hand at saving her himself. Suffice to say, his interference didn’t help things, and through the course of what happened, the kidnapper opened fire and struck Charlie before Paquet could shot him down. The girl was saved, just terrified, but Charlie was paralyzed from the waist down from a bullet through his spine, and left in the hospital to recover from that and another bullet wound that narrowly missed causing some serious damage to his internal organs as well.

At first Paquet was devastated, as inconsolable as her mother had been about her father’s death, and until her brother left the hospital (though confined to bed rest), she refused to leave his side for long. After that, she pulled some strings to make sure he could continue to work at the police department – in the file room, but it was something, and it was stable – and then dove headfirst back into her work. While the family as a whole wasn’t as desperately strapped for cash as they had been, they still weren’t quite comfortable, and with her brother on a slightly lower wage, she had to pick up the slack.

It didn’t help that The Agency began making its moves in Vesper and the police department, which had already been on a downward slope, began failing even more. Blaming the detective and generalizing The Agency along with him (and not liking how they worked anyways), Paquet strove to do everything she could to climb even higher in the ranks of the department so that she could turn it around and try and bring it back. Her marriage with Paxton suffered, and though he at first tried to save it, she put more effort into her work than her relationship with him, and eventually he gave up on it all. Their divorce was quick and simple, and now they hardly speak, if they even see each other. Paquet, obliviously, cannot quite figure out just what happened between them, and she doesn’t stress herself out trying to pin it down.

Instead, to this day, she continues to strive for any way possible to help the failing police department. For almost the past decade (not quite, but almost), though, she’s had the coveted (at least to her) rank of chief of police to help her in that.

×When You Should Have Made Amends×

Other:

For my own reference:
Devin Jackson Paquet, father, deceased
Meg Irene Paquet (nee Holt), mother, unemployed
Charlie Jackson Paquet, brother, desk and file work in the police department
Paxton Oliver McKinnley, ex husband, self-defense trainer