"He's announcing it today right?" Emily looked up from her the lettuce she was trying to spear to her coworker.

"That's what I heard. Are you okay?" Matt eyed her tense hand, and tortured lettuce. She seemed to be pissed at her salad.

"Fine, just getting tired of salads." Along with her exercise routine, Emily had taken to eating salads with grilled--not fried, not baked, but grilled--chicken strips, over the last few months in order to loose weight. If she never saw another peice of grilled chicken again, she'd die a happy woman.

"So, eat something real then."

"I can't, I'm still trying to lose weight." She would keep her quitting weight off if it killed her.

"Jesus Lehamn, how long have you been at that? Whatever you think was there is gone, in fact I think you're thinner now than you were before all this started. Stop before you become a skeleton." Matt shook his head in exasperation.

"I'm not going to turn into a skeleton. I don't starve myself."

"What the hell do you call all the rabbit food you've been eating the last few months? Besides, a little extra weight would be good for you, for you know, when you have to tackle a perp."

Emily's eyebrows rose. "Tackle a perp? Matt, when was the last time you 'tackled a perp'?"

"It could happen." He shrugged, and focused back on his sandwich.

"Yo, Flannery, Lehman, get upstairs, Lea is about to make his big announcement." Frank was suddenly in front of them.

"He's doing it now?" Emily gaped.

"Yes, he sent HRT to find everyone not already up there, so move it."

Matt and Emily exchanged a look, and then disposed of the rest of their lunches. She wasn't sad to see her salad go, she'd barely touched it anyway.


The CNU was literally buzzing when they got back. Every CNU agent, analyst, and HRT agent in the Bureau was gathered in the small bullpen, wondering what the big announcement was. There had been rumors, sure, and speculation, but no one was quite sure what it was. Now people were passing conjecture around like the common cold.

Matt looked around for Cheryl, but couldn't find her, so he followed Emily to where Lia was waving at them. Frank had disappeared to make sure all his guys were among the crowd.

"What do you think this is all about?" The analyst asked excitedly.

"If you follow rumors, Lea is leaving," Emily offered.

At that moment, Lea finally stepped out of his office, Cheryl behind him, and raise his arms in an attempt to quiet them down. "Quiet everyone!"

The large crowd slowly fell silent, and turned toward Lea, eager to have their curiosity finally satisfied.

"As you've all been informed, there are about to be some big changes in the CNU. That's what I want to talk to you about now. First and foremost, the Upper-ups in Washington have seen fit to promote me. I will be leaving the CNU and LA, to join take the AD position in Salt Lake City, recently vacated by the late Jed Henderson." He paused and let that bit of knowledge sink in.

He'd been working with Washington and Salt Lake City on this transition for just under a month. After much deliberation and debate, he was confident that he was leaving his CNU in the best hands possible.

The buzz turned on again, and Matt and Emily exchanged looks, wondering what else was coming. Were they going to get some miserable hard-ass from DC running things?

Lea shushed them all again. "Next thing, obviously the CNU still needs an SSAC, and I really feel very confident about my decision in this regard. I will allow SSAC Carrera, your new leader, make the rest of the announcements."

He smiled and stepped back, nudging Cheryl forward toward their coworkers, now her subordinates. The room took two seconds to go from stunned silence to clapping and cheering. Cheryl followed the sound of a wolf whistle to her partner--well, former partner now. She breathed for the first time in ten minutes. Now, all she had to worry about was Sam.

"I expect you to give her the same respect as you all gave me," Lea added, quieting them down again.

"Okay, thank you everyone for that congratulations, and I have a few more announcements. As you know Larry hasn't been here the last few days, and that's because he's been in the hospital. He had a heart attack, be his wife has assured us that he's doing well. He's also retiring as of today, there's a very large get well/happy retirement card in the conference room to sign." She paused, and looked at Emily.

She was battling between being concerned for her partner, and over the moon thrilled that he was retiring, and she'd be getting a new partner. Matt whispered in her ear, a big smile on his face, teasing her about how happy she must be.

"Special Agent McAllister will be joining us Monday from the Great Falls, Montana office."

Emily's face fell. Seriously, some yahoo from Montana was her new partner? Did the Bureau hate her for some reason?

"Agent McAllister won't be immediately partnered with anyone, he'll be observing our current negotiators. And, the Bureau is a little short on negotiators, so there won't be anyone replacing me yet. Which means, Flannery, Lehman, congratulations, your partners."

Emily's eyes lit. Oh thank god, she was finally getting a talented negotiator as a partner.

"Good luck with that, Lehman," Frank shouted, grinning.

Matt flipped him off with a smile on his face. He was a little bummed to be losing Cheryl, but Emily was a damn good negotiator, so he was okay with it.

"Oh, and one last thing, a congratulations and warning to both of you. Washington informed us that both of you made it into the top five--" She didn't get to finish as applause and cheering went up.

Matt and Emily took it gracefully, though albeit awkwardly.

Cheryl waved her hands. "Alright, I'm not done, quiet down. No other team in the country has two from the top five, that essentially makes you two the best team the Bureau has, and that, obviously means that they will be watching you both very intently for a while."

She watched the smiles dissolve from their faces. Washington looking over their shoulders was going to make their jobs that much more difficult. Some people laughed, some offered sympathetic looks, and Temple and Binder both grimaced. Any jealousy they might have felt was essentially killed.

"Okay, on that note, celebration at Sloan's later," Cheryl announced, dismissing them back to work. She made her way over to Matt, who was watching with an amused expression. Emily had moved off to talk to Lia, in that excited way that women do.

"How long have you known you were being promoted?"

Cheryl shrugged. "A week and a half."

"Congratulations." He smiled, and hugged his close friend and partner of the last five years.

"Thanks..." She still didn't look thrilled, and Matt knew why.

"Have you talked to Sam yet?"

"We discussed it, we argued, and we're supposed to finish that talk tonight." Cheryl looked off toward their cubicle, soon to be his and Emily's cubicle, reluctant to discuss it further.

"Well, good luck with that...do you know how you want to handle this?"

"Yeah, I know what I want." She offered a tired smile. Matt squeezed her hand briefly, as they lapsed into silence.

After a few seconds he desperately needed to break the serious mood. "Does this mean I have to call you ma'am?"

Cheryl rolled her eyes.


"Lehman, you look like a tease sucking on that lollipop," Chuck from HRT commented, watching Emily absently play with her cherry-flavored lollipop. The guys at the table chuckled.

They were in Sloan's, gathered around a handful of tables and part of the bar, celebrating all the changes coming to the CNU. It was Lea's last night with them, so everyone was buying him drinks, and he was on his way to drunk. Cheryl had disappeared from the table when Sam came in, but they'd been buying her drinks too, for her last night as one of the grunts. Monday everything would change.

"Oh yeah? I'll make sure to do it for my boyfriend then." She smiled.

Bars always made her want to smoke, it was probably the scent of stale cigarettes in the air. It hung around, even after years of no smoking laws.

"Boyfriend, who's the lucky guy?" Frank took a swig of his Guinness.

"Andy Taylor."

"The US attorney?" Their friends seemed to share his surprise.

"Yep. Why so surprised?" She eyed them skeptically.

Frank shrugged. "Didn't picture you as into lawyers."

"You didn't tell me you were seeing him," Matt said, clearly a little miffed.

"I didn't know you were into girl talk," she said, lips pursed in an amused smile.

The guys chuckled, and Matt looked mildly embarrassed. "You told me about the butt doctor."

"You asked about him."

Matt blinked, started to work out her logic in his head, and abruptly decided against it. "Whatever. How's it going with Taylor?"

"As well as it usually does when you've only been dating someone for a few weeks." She shrugged, she didn't tend to put much stock in relationships, they always blew up.

"The Bureau's reigning optimist," Frank joked.

"Let's discuss someone else's love life," Emily suggested, turning to Frank. "Frank, who's the flavor of the week?"

"I resent that." His friends shared the same opinion on his dating habits, and chuckled at his comments.

They continued talking, laughing, celebrating, and lamenting the changes to come as the waitress brought a fresh pitcher of beer and a plat of buffalo wings. It wasn't fifteen minutes after that conversation that Matt caught sight of Cheryl slipping out of the back area of Sloan's. Sam was already at the door, and left hurriedly. Cheryl looked like a bus had just side-swiped her, maybe even like she was struggling not to cry. She made for the door, but Matt made it over before she opened it.

"It didn't go well with Sam?"

Cheryl went to speak, but then simply inhaled and shook her head.

Matt rested a hand gently on her arm, and led her out of Sloan's. She was so stunned by her disastrous evening, that she didn't protest when he piled her into his car, and drove to her apartment. Matt followed her upstairs and inside her apartment, and grabbed two beers from her fridge before returning to the living room. Cheryl was still staring off into space, and Matt was growing a bit worried. He sat facing her on the blue microfiber couch, and handed her a beer.

"Tell me what happened." That this was usually a between girlfriends thing, wasn't lost on Matt, but she needed someone, and he was there.

"We broke up."

"So, I gathered." He waited and when she didn't respond, he prompted her again. "What did you tell him about the promotion, about how you wanted to handle the Bureau's rules?"

"I asked him to marry me...he turned me down." There was no inflection in her voice, but it was soft, almost as if she was in a dream.

Matt stared at her in surprise, not sure what to say, as tears began trickling slowly from her eyes down her cheeks.

He didn't need to ask anymore questions, he knew why Sam said no, it was why he'd wished Cheryl luck talking to him. She outranked him now. But, Matt hadn't expected him to be quite that much of a Neanderthal. Of course, he didn't know how he'd feel had he been in Sam's position, but to turn her down outright? To not even take the time to see if he could handle it? He and Cheryl had been dating forever, and to throw it all away just like that?

And, Cheryl just sat there, tears streaming silently down her cheeks.

Matt had seen her cry twice before. Once was when her grandfather died, the other time was when they lost a seven year-old hostage while she was primary. She'd blamed herself.

With nothing else to do, Matt shifted closer, and wrapped his arms around his best friend, pulling her against his body, and letting her cry it out on his shoulder.

Cheryl didn't resist. She trusted Matt, and right then, his willingness to offer comfort meant the world to her. The man she loved just left her, because he couldn't accept her out-ranking him. If things had been reversed, she would have been expected to accept his out-ranking her without a problem. It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair that he could throw away the last three years that easily, when the thought of spending even one night without him was ripping a hole in her chest.

She held tighter to Matt, as if she could push some of her pain into him. It had always been platonic with him. There was maybe a mutual attraction when they first met, but it soon became apparent that, while they'd make great friends, romance between them would be like kissing a sibling. That served them well though, after five years, they trusted each other like only partners could. She relied on that trust, that friendship now.

Tonight was their last night as partners, and tonight, he'd help her get through hell.


So, this one was a little sad, but Sam is a prick, so blame him. Next up is Matt and Em's first negotiation as partners, and I'm up for ideas as to what that should be, if anyone has any (yes, even I run out of ideas now and again). Thanks for reading, and thank you all so much for sticking with this story through my horribly sporadic updating!