Notes: For those that follow me on Tumblr you may have seen this series over there. I started it a while ago, unsure if it was going to blossom into a full story or not. It's really taken on a life of its own now, and I think I have it moving in a pretty good direction. At least good enough to start posting it here. Also, I'm aware that the title is a little funky, but I started posting it under this title on Tumblr and I've actually become rather fond of it.

It began and is being written in drabble format, so they're fairly small one-shots, usually ranging between 500 words and 2K or so. I'll post them up in order here, which is not something that my lovely fans on Tumblr received, as it's been written a little out of order.

I hope you enjoy it. I do love my canon divergent stories. As always, I'd love to know what you think, so please, even if you've read it before, feel free to leave your thoughts in the form of a review. Reviews seriously make my day.

Meetings

There were days when Elizabeth Scott wondered if she wouldn't do better to just crawl back into bed, pull the covers up over her face, and ignore the world. Those days had become more and more prevalent in her life since she had been recruited into a specialized task force. Not that that's the way things were supposed to go. She was a recent graduate of Quanitco, finally a profiler for the FBI, and she'd landed a dream position out of school… because a notorious criminal had walked himself into the FBI office there in DC, turned himself in, and told them that he would only speak to her. That had been nearly six months before and her life had been a roller coaster of chaos since.

And now they wanted to add one more thing on top of it, and temporary or not, she didn't have the patience for it.

Liz hadn't even heard of Halcyon Aegis before Cooper had called her into his office the afternoon before to let her know that they would be expecting a representative would be joining them at the Post Office the next day to shed some light on a case that they'd hit every roadblock imaginable on. She had gone home and done her research, surprise to find that the company had been started by two former members of the intelligence community and marketed as a defence organization. It didn't take a lot of imagination after all the things Liz had seen, though, to read between the lines on what they really did. They were contractors, alright, but she imagined that what they contracted for wasn't kept on most books.

The representative that they were expecting was none other than the only son of the couple who ran the organization. Christopher Hargrave. She'd known people like him before. Hell, she'd even dated one during her time at Georgetown. He was a trustfund kid, never holding down a job other than the one that Mommy and Daddy had handed to him straight out of school, but somehow he was supposed to come into their top-secret black site and help them with their case. Sure. That was going to work out great.

"Excuse me, are you in line?"

Liz blinked, startled out of her irritable thoughts and she turned and found that she had to look up. The man that had spoken was tall, with dark hair and dark blue eyes that had just a hint of green in them. He stood with one hand shoved in the pocket of of his slacks, a book in the other, and a satchel hanging off of one shoulder. She looked him up and down. A teacher, she thought. Maybe even a young professor. He was smiling politely, but that smile was becoming increasingly more awkward as Liz missed the fact that she still hadn't answered his question. "I'm so sorry," she managed, scooting forward to fill the gap left between her and the person in front of her in the line. "Yes, sorry."

He laughed and Liz had to keep from turning and looking at him again. "Mornings before caffeine. I actually have to have a cup at home just to get this far," he chuckled and she found herself grinning right along with him.

"I usually just make mine at home," she answered, stepping up in the line. "It gets so expensive."

"It's convenience," he said with a small shrug, his eyes shining with amusement. "They catch people going into work."

"And Tuesdays are always the days people need it most."

Her charming new friend quirked an eyebrow. "Tuesdays? Not Mondays?"

"Well, Mondays everyone expects to be rough. You're coming off the weekend, you want to hit the snooze button a couple more times, but Tuesdays… They catch you before you even realize it. That, and you find out everything you don't want to look forward for the week out on Monday afternoons."

He grinned and they both took a step forward again, moving so that only two more people were ahead of her in line. "You get some bad news yesterday?"

Liz couldn't help but roll her eyes. "Just someone being brought in on a… project," she said carefully, "that I don't have any interested working with."

"Maybe it won't be as bad as you think."

"Oh, I know the type. He'll be as bad as I think." She stepped again. He was disarming, and that was either a good or a bad thing. Rarely did she find that it landed in between. That morning, though, she was feeling a little more adventurous. "I'm Liz," she introduced herself, sticking her hand out.

"Tom," he answered, shaking it.

"What do you do, Tom? For work, I mean?"

"Oh, I work for a consulting firm. We fix problems that most people wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole."

"Seriously? I must be losing my touch."

"What'd you have me pegged as?"

"A teacher."

He hummed softly. "I've done some training here and there. I'm not half bad at it, I hear. Maybe I should look into a career change."

Liz found herself grinning more than she really should have been at the comment. "Maybe you should."

"What do you do, Liz?" he asked as she stepped up to the counter and placed her order. Once she was done she stepped to the side and let him place his.

"I work for the government."

"It's DC. Everyone works for the government."

"Even you?"

"Sometimes." He stepped past her and up to the counter that the drinks were being delivered at and Liz was surprised to see his already sitting there. He shrugged. "Nice talking with you, Liz. Maybe I'll see you around again, you know, next time you decide to drop by in the morning."

"I may have to," she answered, and about kicked herself when she realized the grin just hadn't faded. She had to stop that. She didn't have time for this. She'd barely had time to breathe, much less flirt, since she'd joined Cooper's task force, and her charming new friend made it far too easy. She didn't know him, and she didn't have time to get to know him. She needed to just let that one go, no matter how cute he'd been.

The Post Office was already buzzing with activity by the time she got there and Aram Mojtabai met her nearly as soon as she stepped out of the lift, his excitement barely contained. "You okay there?" she asked, trying not to laugh at him too openly.

Aram didn't seem to care. "So, you know how Mr Cooper said that Halcyon Aegis was sending someone in this morning?"

"Yeah. Christopher Hargrave. The owners' son."

"Yes, exactly. Apparently Halcyon has an entire department set up for new technologies to better help their operatives in the field-"

"They shouldn't have operatives in the field," Donald Ressler groused as he fell into step with them. "They're a private organization."

"Well, yes, but still," Aram managed, "they do have a tech department and Mr Hargrave brought a few things with him this morning that are out of this world. I mean, I'd heard about a few of the prototypes, but it was going to be another year or more before I could have even hoped to see them here at the Post Office."

"That's great for you, Aram," Liz chuckled, glancing over at Ressler. "So I guess he's here?"

"Strode in here about fifteen minutes ago like he owned the place."

"You sound about as excited as I am on this."

"First Reddington, now Halcyon. No. I'm not excited."

"He's nice," Aram offered.

"He bribed you with shiny new toys," Ressler countered and Aram actually looked offended at that.

"They may not be government run, but they are government sanctioned. It's not like they're vigilantes or anything like that."

Ressler snorted and Liz rolled her eyes as they moved into the bullpen. She spotted Cooper and Meera Malik speaking with a man dressed in a suit across the way. As she moved closer, though, she saw him turn, and the man that had introduced himself as Tom at the coffee shop that morning flashed her a grin. "Liz," he greeted. "You really do work for the government."

She stared at him and could feel her partner's and Aram's eyes on her from either side. "You know him?" Ressler asked.

"We met briefly this morning at the coffee shop down the street."

"You said your name was Tom," Liz managed.

"Ah." He ran a hand through his dark hair, setting it on end. "Yeah, I'm not crazy about giving my name out to just anyone. Never know who you'll meet out on the street or what they really want." He flashed her that same charming grin and, this time, he was the one reaching out for a handshake. "Christopher Hargrave."

Liz just stared at him. This was going to be worse than she'd thought.