Hello all, and welcome to the new readers! I see you, following and favouring the story…looking forward to hear your take on the story first hand!

Alidifarfalla: I dare to assume you are Italian? So many if us around here, myself included! So, no worries about your English, which by the way seems pretty good to me! WOW, 18 chapters in 2 days, I hope you're ok! I must say I'm happy everybody is so concerned for Gillian, and yes, she needs to go through things her own way. They haven't really found Warton yet, they have 3 options to check out so no, not too soon maybe.

Last but not least, if you need a fix of LTM stories I may have flooded this website over the past months.

Now, here's to one one my favourite chapters to write, at least part of it.

The rest of the evening had gone into making plans and arrangements, most of which depended on how persuasive Reynolds could be with the Bureau and on how many resources they were willing to allocate. The Group's relationship with the FBI had been on the mend for a while, apparently a sin worthy of a death sentence according to Rodriguez, so it wasn't all that surprising that they were willing to provide tactical support once it had become clear that they were not chasing a ghost.

A technical team to put the office's phones under surveillance was on its way, and Reynolds had left after dinner to coordinate the operation for the following day, planning to pay visits to the three locations starting with the warehouse. There hadn't been much discussion about it, it had been already late and it certainly made more sense to prepare for the day after than charge blindly at the possible hideouts during the night. Interestingly enough, there had been far more animated conversations about the sleeping arrangements. Loker wanted to stay, feeling safer there anyway and committed to the newly appointed role of custodian of all things equipment, ignoring Reynolds' insistence that he could go home. But the agent's arguments had fallen on deaf ears, even more so with Gillian and Cal who had turned down the offer of secure hotel rooms or a personal guard for the night at their respective houses. The business partners weren't going to be scared out of their own office, besides they felt that if Warton was indeed going to call again they'd better stick around. They also didn't think he would be so daring to come over for a second round, which possibly made the office the safest place they could be; and if he really wanted to have another go, he would have found improved security and an armed FBI agent who looked as deadly as he was silent.

So they stayed. With Miller guarding the main lobby, Loker had crashed on the couch in the waiting area outside Cal's office, Gillian in her office and Cal in his. The separation of powers between the last two had raised Reynolds' eyebrows, but then he figured after two days of barely leaving each other's side they too could use some personal space.

The night had gone by uneventfully, with no drama or calls; that didn't mean they had a good night of sleep, but it certainly was an improvement from the night before. In the morning, a hot rainy morning that promised to be the prelude to a sticky and humid day, Cal was already awake when Gillian came into his office. He was still laying down on the couch, the last of the ice packs on his right ankle and the now empty bottle of painkillers abandoned on the coffee table, when she came in carrying a steaming cup and a serious expression on her face.

"Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes," he mumbled with a smirk as she approached, but her face became even darker.

"It's just tea, Cal." She sighed, then kept muttering as she sipped from the other mug she had brought for herself. "Although after all these years I still don't know how you manage to function without coffee in the morning."

"It's a very Brit kind of grit," he stated, all serious and a tad pompous as he sat up and moved the leg over to the coffee table. "Got any food to go with this?"

"Loker is out with Miller, they should be back soon."

Cal nodded, then took the tea from her and made room for her next to him on the couch. He found himself holding his breath for a few seconds, trying hard not to stare at her and let her see how much her reaction to his silent invitation could affect him, but eventually he relaxed when Gillian scooted over. Then he dared a gesture he had done a million times without thinking about it all that much, scared to realise how much he feared that time might be different, and with the grace of a bull in a China shop put his arm around her. She didn't push back, which was something, but she didn't lean into him as she normally would either.

Things had been a little tense, weird mostly, since after their visit at the Pentagon. It shouldn't have been surprising, but Cal had been taken aback by a series of little clues he wasn't able to identify. Gillian wasn't avoiding him, wasn't shying away, but something had changed in their dynamics and he didn't like the timing of that change. They had gotten closer in a way he hadn't expected, a way he frankly would have never wanted to discover considering what it was coming out of, but he'd lied to himself if he'd said he didn't like the new meaning of their interactions. Yet, in the past few hours it seemed as if Gillian had taken a symbolic step back as if she had something else on her mind. Then again, Cal couldn't fault her if she was a little off, not after the interrogation of the day before.

"How's the prep going?" He asked then, determined to enjoy any kind of proximity she would allow him.

"Reynolds is coordinating things with the surveillance team coming here and the one to check out the locations." Gillian explained, then checked her watch. "We should be ready to go in one hour."

"Then Loker better get a move on with that breakfast."

Two things happened after he said that, implying not so subtly that he planned on joining the party. The first, not surprising reaction coming from Gillian was a heavy sigh of frustration and resignation; the second, far more unexpected but extremely welcomed, was the way she suddenly slipped into his one armed embrace and rested her head in the crock of his neck.

"I think you should sit this one out," she whispered then, almost hoping he wouldn't hear her.

"I'm ok."

"You're not, Cal." She barely let him finish. "You can barely stand on that ankle, you haven't been eating or sleeping properly and you're out of painkillers, which is scary because you probably took too many. And I know some of your injuries from the first attack are still bothering you."

"I wasn't feeling much better yesterday, why all this fuss all of a sudden?"

Cal didn't dare look down at her and was glad for it, because when she gently wrapped her arm around his waist trying to avoid the wounded part he didn't see it coming. She was back on a familiar, far better pattern, and even though he understood she was combining that with a stern talk down he found it hard to protest. So he squeezed a little more with his arm, his other hand resting on top of hers on his stomach, nudging his face a little closer to her head, wondering how she could still smell so good.

"Because I was being selfish," Gillian confessed, her fingers absently toying with his as her voice danced around in the air. "Because I needed you to get through this. And because I needed to see you to make sure you were ok, I didn't trust you to be safe out of my sight. I know that was so stupid, if you had been in the hospital the other night-"

"Then you would have been here alone when he came," he cut her off, as gently as he could, his low voice loaded with fear and pain for what might have been.

Gillian thought about objecting, about saying that she would have probably arranged things with Reynolds for some protection but she knew it was an empty argument. Cal would have never gone for it, and after the events of that night and the follow up call from Warton it was nearly impossible to fault him for it.

"You're not my bodyguard, Cal."

She wasn't entirely sure what she meant by that, what point she was trying to make. In all honesty, as they kept sliding more and more into that seemingly odd embrace, their fingers intertwined, his lips absently brushing her forehead while her mouth seemed to gravitate towards the increasing stubble on his cheek, thinking was becoming a difficult affair.

"What am I then? 'Cause frankly love," Cal swallowed, the first words had come out of his mouth with no warning but he had no intention to ignore them, "I feel like whatever we were before this won't be the same anymore."

Whatever he had been trying to say, if anything at all, no matter how confused and improvised it was, somehow it still got through. Gillian snuggled up even closer, now squeezing his hand tight for what felt like forever, her face pointing upward for a few seconds causing her lips to graze his jawline in a delicate, almost ethereal, touch.

"Just stay here, ok? Please." As a rule, Cal didn't like to hear her plea, even less when it reminded him of how she had begged Matheson to spare him. "We're only checking out these places."

"I am being selfish too, Gillian." His hand around her started caressing her arm and shoulder, a slow up and down gesture that brought comfort to both of them, his face leaning into the phantom touch of her lips whether he realised it or not. "I'm just too terrified to let you out of my sight again."

"I won't be alone, the FBI is on this now. Ben will be there with me, and he knows better not to let anything happen to me or he'll face your wrath."

"You bet!" He tried to build on her attempt to liven things up, but there were too many spoken and unspoken emotions on the table for that to work. "Gillian, I can't-"

"Cal, please." She begged again, some form of desperation guiding her hands to grip the collar of his jacket and pull, bringing his body closer to her. "This thing has been coming at us from all directions and I don't know what's going to happen once it's over…but I know that I can't see you getting hurt again. I'll be fine, there will be 10 armed agents around me-"

"Now, I don't know how I feel about you being surrounded by men!" He chuckled softly, to which Gillian responded by burying her face in his neck, letting go and using her hand to cup his cheek in a claiming action that felt strangely natural, yet out of place. Cal closed his eyes, shamelessly taking in the intoxicating cocktail of sensations and emotions that prolonged and deepening contact was throwing his way, and he realised if he hadn't wanted her to go before he was even less fond of the idea now that unspoken promises were being made. "I don't understand why you need to go anyway."

"Yes, you do." Much to Cal's disapproval, she pulled back a little so that they could look at each other. But his arm stayed firmly around her and her hand didn't leave his face, her thumb gently stroking his cheek. "You know I have to face these things myself, I need to."

"I know," he whispered, trying to smile and looking down at her as if he was considering doing the unthinkable and taking the dreaded next step. He bailed out in the end, despite catching something in her eyes that told him the adventurous gesture would have been welcomed, and opted for mirroring her gesture and held her face in his hand, smiling softly as he spoke. "Guess we're much more alike than what we care to admit."

They were still on the couch when Loker knocked on the door some 15 minutes later, bringing assorted breakfast items and the news that the surveillance team had come, set up and left. He didn't find them entangled and close as they had been, but just sitting next to each other in a silence that seemed strange and heavy to him but that was nothing but comfortable for them. So much so that they invited him to have his breakfast there with them, something that left Loker equally shocked and flattered.

That was how Reynolds found the three of them, sharing coffee, tea, pastry and bagels while talking shop. Loker had been keeping his mouth shut with the rest of the staff, as far as they knew he was at home waiting for the bosses to clear whatever mess was going on, but work did have to go on. Together, they were going through tasks and jobs that could be assigned and executed remotely, and came up with further communication about the office undergoing some unplanned but urgent maintenance. That part was sort of true, after all the FBI team setting up shop in the lab had had to share the space with technicians working to fix or replace some of the broken equipment, and they were confident it would have been enough to keep their employees away.

"I don't see why they'd want to come anyway," Cal muttered at some point. "We're paying them to stay home after all."

Gillian rolled her eyes but decided not to invest any energy in rebutting him, instead asking Loker if he'd heard from Ria.

"Kind of," he mumbled, looking away with shy confusion. "She's mostly asking if you're ok." Foster gave out another eye roll, this one addressed to Torres and her misplaced concern. "I haven't told her about everything else."

"That's right, none of her business."

"Cal!"

"What?" He protested. "She lost the right to know when she walked out. And you were the one to tell her she could get lost, if I remember correctly."

That put Gillian in her place for a moment, he wasn't wrong about that, and also put an end to the conversation. Which gave Reynolds the cue to step in and break up the trio.

"We're all set, ready to go," he announced, immediately registering the look between Cal and Gillian.

And they're back, he thought with a smirk. He watched as they both stood up, Gillian looking ready to go with Cal trailing behind, shoeless and with a childish pout on his face. Somehow, she had convinced him to stay and let others take care of that exploration, something he was extremely grateful for because he had spent hours thinking about how he could keep Lightman on a tight leash while on the scene. The man wasn't happy about being left behind, clearly, but he looked like he had been given plenty of reasons for it or was too weak to appeal the decision.

"Where are you going first?" Cal asked them and they walked out of his office, Gillian and Loker taking a detour to her office while the two men headed toward the exit. "The warehouse?"

"It seems like the most reasonable place to start," Reynolds nodded. "Miller is going to stay here with you and Loker, he can take care of things if Warton calls again. We'll get more men soon but for now I don't have that many and I think it would be best to have them on the field."

"Yeah," Cal mumbled absently as he watched Gillian coming back from her office with her bag and jacket. "I like that plan."

"Don't worry Cal," the agent said, rushing to get it out before she caught up with them. "I promise I won't let her out of my sight."

Cal didn't need his science to know he meant it, he really did, but he also knew that good intentions, no matter how true, weren't always enough in real life. Still, he nodded to the agent knowing he could count on his commitment, then they broke apart as Gillian and Loker approached. She saw the look between them, and even without that she would have put money on what kind of conversation they might have been having. To her advantage, Cal was so focused on not revealing himself that he failed to register Loker's expression: tensed, more than usual, and strangely determined.

"We'll call you when we get there, ok?" Reynolds told Cal and he nodded, even though his attention was solely on Gillian.

There wasn't much else to say, not without getting into an endless loop of recommendations and instructions that had already been shared many times, so Reynolds and Foster left while Cal, Loker and Miller headed for the lab. The FBI had set up things there, not just surveillance in case Warton called again but also communications between the units involved. Cal was the on-the-field kind of person and he sure didn't like to feel like a guest in his own office, but he was doing his best to convince himself that that was the best way to proceed.

Still , he wasn't really good at waiting and figured a call to Emily would help with that. It worked like a charm, as it usually did, however after nearly 30 minutes Cal realised he'd better end the call before his daughter could start suspecting that something might be off. Thankfully, he didn't have to wait long for some action after he hung up with Emily, and only one hour after Gillian and Reynolds had left they called in with a report.

"Nothing," the agent sighed when Cal eagerly asked what they had found. "It's a bust."

"Why? What happened?"

"They tore down the warehouse two years ago. Now there's a public park where that was."

"Are you sure?"

"Am I- C'mon Lightman, there's a junior league baseball pitch where the building used to be!" He stated with a bit of exasperation, then lowered his voice a notch. "Foster confirmed this is the place, no mistake here."

"How is she?" Cal asked, shaking his head no at Loker in the meantime to let him know there was nothing behind door number one.

"She's…" On the other side of the line, miles across town, Reynolds turned around to look at Gillian, who was standing behind a fence and stoically staring at the pitch on the other side, facing things only she could see. "She's Foster, you know."

Cal did know, and still he wished he could be with her. He knew she was strong and that she needed to confront things, but having a little extra support while doing so could have hardly been a bad thing. Eventually he sighed and shook his head, trying to focus on the matter at hand.

"What's next?"

"The sports centre," the agent said, his voice back on a normal track too. "One of my colleagues called ahead to make sure there would be someone to let us into the grounds. Some of the members and residents of the area mentioned something about a man wandering around the facilities over the past few days."

"Sounds like something we might want to check out," Cal mumbled, feeling like he was deluding himself by using a plural pronoun.

"I'll call you back when we get there, ok?" Cal nodded, not realising Reynolds couldn't register his mute response. "Lightman?"

"Yes, I'm here." He sighed then, biting at his bottom lip. "One down, two to go, right?"

"We'll find him, Cal," the agent stated, confidence and hope oozing from his voice, right before hanging up.

Leaving Cal wishing he could share even a fraction of that positive prediction.

Can you guess what part was my favourite?

By the way, with this chapter we officially passed the half-way mark. Is this a good moment to mention I have at least two more things in the works?