Disclaimer: don't own anything
Ria sighed and started typing up the report for the case she had just finished with Dr. Lightman. She hadn't liked it, she never really liked working with him because he did things totally different from her and all she basically did during those cases was observe and watch.
Oh and sometimes talk to someone when Cal was too lazy to do so and instead prefer to watch. Of course that only made him come across as a big jerk to the client or to the person they were interrogating but Lightman didn't care and she didn't say anything on it until they were alone in the room.
Her fingers flew over the keyboard as she wrote everything down in the document that was modified to have the logo of the company on top together with some other information about herself. Everyone in the company had their different template with their personal info on it so it was easier for Cal to file or just to see who worked best on what cases and with whom.
He had explained it once to her way back in the beginning but she had to admit she hadn't exactly been listening. His British accent often distracted her from what he was really saying and she had a gut feeling that he knew and used it a lot on purpose but she couldn't tell just yet. The man was the perfect liar, for someone who was a walking lie detector as Loker liked to call him.
From the corner of her eye, she saw Loker throw up some candy and tried to catch it with his mouth. He succeeded several times but even she had to suppress a giggle when he missed and looked like a wounded puppy at the candy on the floor.
The man cursed on the background and Ria couldn't even stop herself from smiling at his childlike behaviour. He really knew how to get her mind completely off the topic she was actually thinking about and often thanked him for that (not out loud of course, although she did want to see his face if she would tell him).
The report file came out of her head so fluently that she didn't even have to look at her keyboard while she typed it all up. It was like she was just reading it or hearing it be said by someone and she was only typing it up. Of course, this wasn't the first report she had written in all her time here so she was already used to writing everything down that she had seen and observed of the whole case. There were specific guidelines that Cal had told her but she never really followed them and he never pointed them out so they just let it be.
She heard Gillian's heels in the hallway, walking to her own office and Ria briefly wondered where the woman had been before she realized that it was past dinner time and she had probably been out again with that husband of hers.
Ria bit her lip as she tried not to jump up from her chair, run to Gillian and yell at her for being so stupid and not seeing how her husband was cheating on her. It took all of her might but she managed to do just fine by concentrating her thoughts back on the report on the screen in front of her.
"Honestly, all those reports we have to type up. They're all just a fucking joke," Loker muttered on the other side of the room as he threw another candy in the air and caught it with his mouth, "I mean, Lightman himself knows everything and never forgets a single detail so why do we even have to type it all out?"
"He's not that smart Loker."
"You're underestimating him...again," Loker sighed, "stop doing that."
"I don't underestimate him at all, I think you overestimate him."
"Using big words today aren't we Torres?"
"Zip it Loker, I'm working."
Loker laughed on the other side of the room and popped another candy in his mouth (or at least tried to, this time it fell on the floor and Ria had to sit through another 5 seconds of the wounded puppy look). She sighed and finished up the report before printing it out, putting it in the right folder and making her way to her boss' office.
All of that took at least half an hour, because Loker had apparently found it hilarious to suddenly take the file from her and run around the building with it, leaving her to either print it out again or chase Loker. Since she didn't think of the first option at the time, she had been stuck chasing Loker around for a good 10 minutes before she managed to tackle him to the ground and steal the file back.
"You are so childish", she had muttered when she walked away from still laying on the floor, propped up on his elbows and a sly smirk playing on his lips.
Once she reached Cal's office and managed to make herself look at least a bit presentable, she knocked on the glass door twice before entering. She wondered why he hadn't told her to come in like he usually did but let it go out of her thoughts as soon as it had entered them. It didn't really matter anyway.
The thing was, she couldn't find him anywhere in his office and she didn't dare to enter that special little room hidden behind the wall after what happened last time she was there. Then again, she could just leave the file on his desk and go home to get some well deserved sleep. Her mind however refused to go until she had said a goodnight to her boss and so, her fingers quickly pried open the door to the secret little room and her eyes scanned the tiny surface in the hopes to find her boss somewhere in there.
She was lucky enough to find him in the armchair, his hands clasped together on his chest and the film of that woman playing again and again in front of him. She frowned; she still didn't know who the woman was but Cal clearly cared for her and Ria had tried everything to find out who she was. And with that, she meant everything.
"Curiosity killed the cat," Cal had told her once, and of course, being who she is, she couldn't help but shoot back:
"Yes, but at least the cat found out what it wanted to know."
"You're not a cat. And I'm not going to tell you."
With that, Cal had closed off the conversation and dismissed her from his office. She smiled at the memory and often recalled it when she was once again thinking about the woman or Gillian's cheating husband. Sometimes secrets were secrets for something and she just couldn't know about them. She had learned to accept that even though it was the hardest thing she had ever had to do.
"Dr. Lightman?"
He didn't reply to her voice and so, Ria couldn't do anything else but walk closer to him and shake his shoulder slightly. She frowned; he didn't even look like he was breathing. What was going on here? Ria shook his shoulder and called out for her boss a few more times without avail, he just wouldn't reply to her and his chest wasn't even rising up and down like it normally did.
"This isn't funny Cal," she muttered as she placed the file on the stairs behind the armchair and shook him by both of his shoulders. Again, she received no response from her boss. Maybe she should call Gillian for help. Or Loker for that matter. But then again, small parts of her were afraid that then she might be stepping outside the lines and do something Lightman didn't want her to do.
"Screw the rules," she muttered as she ran as quickly as she could to Gillian's office and opened the door without even knocking. Gillian looked up from the many files on her desk and frowned at the woman standing in her doorway.
"Torres? What's wrong?"
"Dr. Lightman," Ria panted from the running, "he isn't responding to me and well, his chest didn't seem to be rising and falling and…I don't know," she sighed, "I panicked."
"Calm down," Gillian assured him and stood up from behind her desk, placing her hand on the woman's shoulder and looking kindly in her eyes, "I'll go and check up on him."
"Thank you," Ria let out a sigh in relief, one that she wasn't even aware she was holding.
Gillian smiled sweetly at her again and squeezed her shoulder before leaving her office and leaving Ria alone in the room.
Gillian sighed as she walked in the small hidden room and looked at Cal. His head was slumped to the side and one of his arms was lying comfortably over his stomach while the other one hung loosely over the side of the armchair. The man looked like a disaster had just swept him over; a rumpled shirt, huge bags under his eyes, his usual scruff worse than ever.
"Hey Cal," she shook his shoulder softly and noticed how shallow his breathing really was. It was so soft that his chest was indeed not rising up and down like Ria had told her. Squeezing the man's shoulder, she hoped to get a reaction from him but no avail. At least he was still breathing, that was a good sign.
"Is he okay?"
Ria Torres' voice behind her was so soft and full of care for her boss that it shook Gillian out of her reverie of staring at Cal's lips. The older woman nodded and looked over her shoulder at the natural in the doorway.
"He's fine, just knocked out."
The younger woman frowned at her choice of words and Gillian winced mentally, using the term 'knocked out' when Ria was already so worried about Cal wasn't such a smart idea after all.
"But he's going to be okay…right?"
"Yes," Gillian smiled, "don't worry about him. Go home, get some rest. You look like you really need it."
"I guess I do," Ria smiled tiredly and grabbed the file she had forgotten on the stairs behind the armchair, "I'll just, place this on his desk…or something."
She left the small room again and Gillian waited a while before she was completely sure that the younger woman had left the office completely and wasn't going to return. Gillian bit back a grin and then ran her fingers through Cal's -now greasy and messed up- hair. She couldn't help but place her lips on his forehead for a brief few seconds in a goodnight kiss before she stood up and wanted to leave the room.
"Gill?"
"Go back to sleep Cal…"
"I was asleep?" his voice sounded so confused that Gillian actually wondered if he really had been asleep and not really unconscious but then again, she hadn't seen a wound or anything that could've told her that he was knocked unconscious so she just concluded that he had to be a really deep sleeper.
"Yeah," she crouched back down next to him and squeezed his shoulder as he leaned his head on his hands that were already leaning on his knees. He looked like a mess and Gillian desperately wanted to take him in her arms and hug the living daylight out of him but she remained as professional as 5 seconds ago and just went up and down his back with her hand in comfort.
"I guess that kiss was a dream then," Cal sighed as he leaned back in the armchair again, his lips pursed together and his eyes avoiding Gillian's at any cost.
"Mm," Gillian frowned before she forced him to look at her, "did it feel like this?"
The question was slightly muffled with the fact that she had pressed her lips against his in a soft kiss. She knew that the kiss he was talking about was either the one she had given him on his forehead or one he had dreamed about. She hoped it was the latter. Within seconds, she felt Cal's hand on the back of her neck, pulling her deeper in the kiss. His scent enthralled her, making her crawl on his lap to get as close to him as she could.
"Yeah, something like that."
"Then yeah, it was a dream."
Disclaimer: Don't own anything
A/N: sorry for any of the mistakes I made, this is written in a haste (and I should be sleeping already...), hope you liked it anyway!