When Finola and Bryan meet each other for the first time, she smells rain in the air and the scent associates with the day of the week in her mind. A Thursday.
"Finola," she says before anyone can greet her by her last name or introduce her with "Agent." She extends a hand to the man who would now be her partner in this strange, new endeavor.
Finola. It's a name he has never encountered before but her surname was what had really grabbed his attention.
Jones. "Any relation to Dr. George Jones?" he had asked Maddox as he had riffled the pages of the file the CIA had prepared for them, catching glimpses of words and photos but not absorbing them yet.
"Her father." The CIA handler had nodded at the file. "It's in there."
He wonders how she got the name Finola but doesn't bring it up. Knowing classified information and that alien spacecraft is real, with all that that implies, he's content to keep some simple, harmless mystery in his life.
"Bryan," he replies, shaking her hand.
Beneventi. She guesses the name is rooted in Latin or Italian.
The scientist in her, however, still wants to explore his name, to study its meaning like it's nomenclature.
She wonders what his family lineage is in this day and age of DNA testing and ancestral research. How had he come to be here, working with the CIA and now tapped to be a part of Orbital, an international intelligence agency with truly global, even extraterrestrial, consequences?
Bryan. Much more prosaic compared to his surname but the "y" made it a touch more special in her view.
She hasn't met many Bryans with a "y."
Was he named after another Bryan, a family member or friend? She knows he wasn't named after his father. She had read MI-6's dossier on him from cover to cover.
"It's nice to meet you, Finola."
Her curiosity is replaced by pleasure when he doesn't stumble over her name or accidentally call her something else. Most often, people say "Fiona." She recalls Ferris being one of them, long ago.
"It's nice to meet you too, Bryan."
He can tell she genuinely means it, and he finds his lips twitching with the start of a smile. They let go of each other's hand and board their assigned transport, starting their first of many shared journeys together.