A/N: Thank you for all the reviews and feedback for this new story - it is much appreciated!

Gillian was stunned. For several moments she just stood there, staring after Cal and berating herself for causing such an inappropriate scene in front of their staff. She had no idea what to say to them now – or how to make them stop staring at her like she was some kind of wounded animal. Pity, laced with compassion. She was so embarrassed.

Part of her wanted to run after him. If she hurried, she knew she could probably catch him in the parking lot. But then what? Offer some half-assed apology for behaving like a jealous nut, suggest that they wipe the slate clean, and then take him up on that lunch offer? No, this was a game changer – one she had no idea how to handle.

She'd pretty much backed him into a corner, and forced him to admit feelings that he obviously wasn't ready to face under normal circumstances. They couldn't just move forward and pretend it never happened. He'd kissed her, for God's sake. He'd kissed her and even as angry as she was when it started, by the time he pulled away her knees were threatening to buckle and her limbs were shaking and every fiber in her being was screaming that she couldn't wait to do it again. Gillian sighed, brought her hands to her temples to try and will away the massive headache that was already forming, and shook her head in self-disgust.

She tried her best to re-focus, and then glanced at the staff members that were still milling around her. Torres and Loker were there of course, along with a few interns who didn't have either the common sense or the experience to know when to walk away. They seemed as dazed as Gillian did, and who could blame them. It wasn't every day the equity partners were embroiled in a shouting match and full-on make out session in the middle of the office. That was something they certainly didn't cover during orientation.

After a few awkward moments, it was Loker who finally came to Gillian's rescue. He nodded in her direction, just to make sure he wasn't overstepping any boundaries, and then he started to wave everyone away. "Crazy comes with the territory around here – you might as well get used to it," he quipped.

Gillian shot him a grateful smile and quickly ducked back into her office. Time for some damage control, she decided. She made a beeline for her desk, knowing full well that Loker would follow closely behind her (and probably drag Torres along with him), and she wanted to hide those pictures before anyone else could see them. There was no use making the situation any worse than it already was.

Not even one full minute later, she heard Loker's heavy footsteps fall in line behind her. He paused, seeming to second guess himself, and then finally went ahead and asked the inevitable. "No disrespect intended here, Doctor Foster, but I just have to ask – what the hell was that?"

'Well, that certainly didn't take long,' she told herself.

She'd managed to gather the photographs and had stacked them face-down beneath their envelope before Eli started speaking, but by the time he finished the sentence, he had rounded the corner of her desk and was staring down at its surface from over her shoulder. Clearly he'd learned a thing or two from Cal Lightman about the boundaries of personal space.

Gillian sighed. "It's private," she said, trying like hell to keep the comments short and simple to avoid anything else spiraling out of control. The less everyone knew about her… situation with Cal, the better.

Her eyes locked with Loker's, silently pleading with him to just let the whole thing drop. Maybe he would have, if Torres hadn't forced the issue the second she walked into the room.

"That's a half truth," Torres quickly observed. "I don't mean any disrespect here, either, but I think there's something you're not telling us. You and Lightman have always had a personal friendship, and you've never reacted to him like that. You've never reacted to anything like that."

Damn it, damn it, damn it. Gillian squeezed her eyes shut and tried to slow her breathing. This was not going well. She hadn't even heard Torres approaching them, but when she looked up again, the younger woman stood in front of her, side by side with Loker.

Loker nodded, not missing a beat. Any hope of him letting the matter drop was completely gone now. "My guess is that it has something to do with those pages she's trying to hide," he said, gesturing at the photographs that were peeking out from beneath the corners of their envelope.

When he pointed, Gillian looked down and saw that her hand was now a closed fist resting on top of them – a classic defensive gesture, one she only realized because he called attention to it. She immediately unclenched her fingers and then let them splay loosely atop the documents, but she did not let go.

She tried to keep her features as neutral as possible. On the inside she was a wreck, but there was no way she was going to let that emotion show on the outside. Not consciously, at least. And definitely not around these two. They'd pick up the scent of her frustration like a couple of bloodhounds. "I'm very sorry you both had to see that," she said, making a valiant effort to keep emotion out of her voice. "I'm very sorry that anyone had to see that. It was completely inappropriate, and trust me – it will not happen again."

Loker and Torres didn't say a word. They just stared, nodding almost imperceptibly as they studied her. There was no malice in their attitude at all – they showed nothing but genuine curiosity and honest observation, and Gillian imagined this was exactly how some of their witnesses felt when called in for an interview with either one of them. Except that she wasn't a witness – she was their boss, and she'd stupidly thrown herself headlong into the path of their scrutiny. It was totally unnerving.

A few seconds later, Loker was the first to break the silence. He pointed toward Gillian's shoulder and quirked a brow in surprise. "You saw that, didn't you?" he turned to ask Torres. "That little…"

"… one-sided shrug?" Torres finished. "The one she tried to hide when she told us it would not happen again? Yep, sure did. Hate to break it to you, Doctor Foster, but we know you don't believe that."

Gillian wanted to bang her head against the wall in frustration. Quickly running out of options and still determined to work things out by herself, she tried to switch tactics, hoping she could get them to back down. "You think I don't believe what, Ria?"

Loker and Torres smiled simultaneously, like they shared some mysterious secret to which she wasn't privy. "She called you Ria," Loker quickly noted. He nudged Torres in the side with his elbow, like the sound of it was funny somehow. "Foster wants to make sure we still understand that she's the one in charge here, not us."

"Well that's only natural," Torres replied. "After what we all saw in that hallway, it makes perfect sense that she'd want structure and order now. Keep us within our boundaries, so to speak."

Her tone bordered on condescending, but Gillian decided to let it go… it was definitely a day to pick her battles. A second later, she dropped her head, defeated. She was dealing with one natural and one behavioral scientist that was far more capable than Cal would ever admit aloud – and they had both been trained by the master himself. There was no point fighting it anymore. Whatever defense she tried to wear, they'd simply continue to tear it down one micro-expression at a time until they dragged the truth right out of her. It was just in their nature.

She wanted to cry; wanted to curl herself up into a little ball and ignore everything until the pounding in her head stopped or she figured out a way to deal with her feelings about Cal – whichever came first. Instead, she let out a shaky breath and lifted her hand from the pages on her desk to push them slightly aside, in Loker's direction. Then she lifted her eyes to his and gave a slightly affirmative nod as he reached for them.