Science of Silence
Disclaimer: I am in no way affiliated with "Lie to Me" and make no profits from these efforts of fan appropriation. I only hope to make someone smile.
Author's Note: I find myself writing in circles about these characters. I love them too much to stop, even as my understanding is radically shifting with each episode. But in these early, exciting days, it's too much fun to throw ideas out there and just play with the world.
Lying is done with words and also with silence. - Adrienne Rich
It had taken 22 hours to solve the murders. 22 hours with a team of four where the prison had already dedicated weeks. The speed, the efficiency of the Lightman Group made it the best in its specialized field. In less than one full day the Group had completed a very large amount of work, for which it had been paid very well. The Group looked in very good shape.
The four people who made up the core of the Group, who had put in 88 man hours in less than one full day were in very poor shape. Dedication, adrenaline and caffeine had seen them through those 22 hours, but the aftermath saw the dregs that washed back into the office to be greeted only by well-rested secretaries and-
"Alec! I thought you had a meeting at 9." Tired as she was, Gillian's face lit up to see her husband waiting for her. A fact not missed by her colleagues.
"Postponed – Couldn't let you return triumphant and not even say congratulations." His eyes raced around to touch on each of them. "I heard it on the news, congratulations."
Nor could they miss the nervous tapping of his fingers as his eyes skittered behind heavy glasses. Landing on his wife, creating a sphere of oppressive intimacy that had the rest of them edge away, slowly, reluctant to part lest their exhausted minds forget what was left to be done.
"Thank you for coming. Do you have time for a cup of coffee?"
"I have to get back to work. The governor -"
"Go. We're almost done here and I'm just going to go fall asleep. I'll see you for dinner?" An easy kiss to the cheek, parody of a perfect dance of marriage. So like the joyful mischief of the 50s sitcom but for the lies written all over Alec's face and woven in his voice.
"I'll call you." Even his kiss was deceitful. The hand brushing his wife's arm overcompensation for his guilt, reassuring himself more so than her.
Ria meant to glance knowingly at Lightman. But once she found him he was watching the scene with such intensity that she couldn't look away. Felt her eyes narrowing in a challenging glare. He saw what she saw, he knew what she knew. Once Alec was gone he'd look at her and he would have to admit it. Look at me. Look at me look at me look at me.
Foster turned to speak with Loker, walking a few paces further away and Lightman finally turned his head, sizing her up. "You. I don't want to hear it out of you again, do you hear?"
"So you're just going to let your best friend's husband screw around, and not say anything?" She knew she was getting to him when his head bobbled. "It's true, isn't it? She's what, the only friend you've got left and you're just going to lie to her and let her think everything is fine just because-"
"You don't know that." There was a hardness in his eyes, mirrored in his voice. Unmistakable.
"That she's your best friend?"
"That he's cheating on her." There, when he said the word 'cheating.' Lowered brows. A tightening around the corners of his mouth accentuated by the lines grooved by time and that meant-
"No." Lightman saw his Natural's eyes widen in discovery before narrowing in for an attack. "But you do." Very focused and very angry, that one was. Pity she didn't know how dangerous that made her.
They both felt her satisfaction as Cal made an unconscious aggressive move, nostrils flaring as he loomed into her personal space. "Haven't you learned a thing from Loker? Keep telling everyone everything you don't think they want to hear and I'll have two of him I will. And I never needed one." It was a threat, a move of last resort but he was her boss, and she ought to take the hint and give up prying.
But Ria was a girl who had survived the school of hard knocks, stolen herself an education while she was at it. An incomplete education, and Cal was beginning to realize that teaching her to play a head game of finesse rather than throw emotional punches would take more than a box of old journal articles. Her problem wasn't that she didn't listen. It was that she refused to hear. Her deceptively paralyzed nose moved as much as it was able beneath a lowered brow. About to commit premeditated violence, she was.
Not much took Cal Lightman by surprise these days. But Ria had, just enough so that she was already gone from his side before he could react. "Torres-" The vehemence in his voice surprised even him, and as he grabbed her arm to stop her he saw Foster and Loker in a watchful tableaux. "I'm warning you now. Don't."
There was nothing else to do, short of throwing her down. And that would create even more of a scene without procuring any sense from her. No. Violence was less likely to change Ria Torres' mind than helpful advice. He was out of moves. Nothing to do but stand helpless in the middle of his own sleek hallway as his loose-canon approached his partner with a murderous intensity. He had the urge to sit but there were no chairs.
No chairs in the hallway as whatever Torres was whispering caused Gillian to turn her head in interest. Nothing to be done as they disappeared into Gillian's office. No place to wait. Not sure what he was waiting for but he needed to wait for it so he could do something so he could sit-
"What was that about?"
Loker. Cal was aware that the world was moving oddly or perhaps his head was moving oddly within it. Sleep deprivation, not doubt. And what had Gillian named it? Stress decompression. Too fast and it's like the bends, she'd said. Too old for all nighters, he was.
"Doctor?"
Whatever it was, he wanted to sit, he didn't want to talk with Loker.
Leaving the young researcher standing alone in a glass hallway. Alone with plenty of truths to tell, but no one to hear them.