Here we are, are you ready?

Are we going to find out where Warton is hiding?

And how much is the dynamic between Gillian and Cal changing? And would this be a good or bad change?

The security footage wasn't much help. It did show someone lurking around the facilities, usually early in the morning and late at night, but the cameras were not good enough for night viewing and the images were nearly useless. The one thing they could confirm was that it was probably always the same person, a man in his thirties, and that he had indeed started to show up within a time frame that reasonably matched Warton's arrival in Washington.

There was nothing showing the man coming or going at times that would have ruled him out as the perpetrator of the attacks on them, but there was not enough on the tape to prove it was Warton. On the contrary, what was on it seemed to make that possibility less likely. The man they saw wandering around, somehow getting in and out of the centre undetected, was too tall to be Warton to begin with, and it looked like he was constantly dragging his feet as if he had some trouble walking. Having seen Warton in action, Gillian struggled to accept that might be the same man, and for the first time Reynolds saw his own certainty slip.

There was still a ray of hope, the DNA and prints collected in the secret room, and the agent was scrambling to get the results back as soon as possible. Sat at one of the tables in the lobby of the centre, a small plastic cup in her hands with lukewarm coffee she had taken from a vending machine, Gillian watched things unfold not quite sure what to make of it. She was now almost convinced that the mysterious man was not Warton, which made all that display of law enforcement rather useless. But she trusted Reynolds' judgement and most importantly respected his work, therefore it was hard for her to dismiss his need to tick all the boxes before moving on to something else.

The worst part was that she also felt that kind of loyalty and respect for Cal, even more so, and she was stuck between the two men's opposite strategies. Sitting there, giving up on drinking coffee that tasted like dirty water, Gillian realised with a small wave of inward pain that that morning was the most time they had spent apart since the nightmare had started. After Cal had arrived at the office, bloodied and bruised, and she had gone to check out his place with Reynolds, they had been nearly inseparable, almost constantly in the same room. It wasn't surprising, they knew what they were dealing with and could use mutual support. As a rule, neither of them liked to show weaknesses to others aside from a selected few, and naturally they had found in the other the only person who could truly understand. People liked to think that Cal was very protective of her, much like with Emily, but Gillian would have not discounted the extent of her own effort in looking after him. Even more so because he often acted like nothing could affect him, Gillian always wanted to make sure Cal knew she was there if he needed her.

Then, of course, the peculiar dynamic of the past few days was shifting things around in a very different way. Their connection had been all over the place recently, always grounded in their very special friendship and the mutual professional respect they had for one another… But there had been times, things said and small gestures that were hinting at a change in how things used to be. Cal had killed a man for her before, there was no other way to put it, and he had been pretty vocal in letting her know he'd do it again if he had to. That was quite the statement to drop on someone, especially for Gillian who could easily do the maths: for Cal to fulfil that promise it meant that he'd had to face Warton again, and she didn't want that to happen.

She wanted him to be there for her like had been in that small room at the Pentagon and right outside the building, like he had been holding her in his office as she begged him to consider how his actions would affect her. Cal Lightman could be rough and harsh, abrasive and annoying and many things in between: but with her he could also be gentle, comforting and open to show sides of himself others didn't know about. Sure, up until that point any significant change between them had been unspoken, implied by words and actions that had been new to them, but it was there and they could hardly deny it anymore. In the midst of all the drama and violence, it was hopeful and refreshing to see how their friendship seemed to be on the path to becoming something else, but it was also infuriating that it was coming out of something terrible. Gillian knew, had they come out of that alive and well, the peculiar circumstances of the relationship development would have probably weighed on them moving forward.

She was still absorbed in those thoughts, also starting to think that it probably wasn't the right time to have them, when her phone buzzed. It was on the table, by her hand, where she could keep an eye on it with ease. Gillian looked at the screen and saw that it was an email with a heavy attachment, probably the phone call they had placed to the Wagners' residence, then sighed and started looking inside her bag for the earplug. The lobby was busy, the entire place was still crowded with FBI agents on top of the regular visitors. It was far too noisy to be able to give the recording an accurate listening, and she wanted to be able to give it the necessary attention.

Gillian set things up quickly and downloaded the file, watching the progress of the operation, then put the earbuds on and pressed play. The voice of the woman who had picked up sounded a bit uncertain and weak, but that would have fit with the story of Mrs Wagner being at home sick, and since she only said 'hello' there wasn't much there for her to analyse. The greeting was followed by a man's voice, and even though Gillian had only heard Miller say a handful of words she recognised him straightaway. It made sense that Cal had not been the one doing the talking, if Warton had anything to do with the family his British accent would have been too easy to recognise, but Gillian was certain that Cal had been close while that went on, directing the agent on what to say.

As the recording played on, Gillian covered her ears with her hands and closed her eyes, focusing as much as possible on the phone conversation and cutting out the background noises as much as she could. It wasn't an easy listening, she was far too used to the quiet of the office for that kind of things, but she understood that Miller was pretending to be a real estate entrepreneur interested in buying properties to fix up and resell for a profit, who was looking to find out it the Wagners were looking to sell. The woman's response was slightly panicked, which could have been put down to the unusual and blunt request, and she seemed to be in a hurry to end the call once she told Miller that they were not looking to sell. There, Gillian thought, was where Cal's direction probably came in, because Miller immediately followed up by asking if she knew of anybody else in the area who might be interested. It made strategic sense to split the questions: they had her reaction to the first question - surprise, nervousness - and now the one to the follow up. Annoyance would have been understandable in front of such shameless insistence, perhaps even a bit of rage, but Mrs Wagner sounded strangely on edge for such a seemingly harmless topic. Then, once again Cal's name written all over it, with the next question Miller kindly enquire if perhaps he could speak with her husband-

"Bad news."

Gillian nearly jumped on her seat for the sudden surprise, feeling Reynolds' hand on her shoulder before she could hear him. Only then she realised she had been keeping her head down, curled up to shield herself from other noises, oblivious to the world around her. She still had the earplugs on as Reynolds kept talking, possibly apologising for sneaking up on her like that, and when she finally took them off he seemed to have moved on to something else.

"Sorry, what?" She asked then, pressing pause on the recording.

"I just heard from the lab, DNA and prints are not a match."

"Are they on the system at all?"

"No, but it doesn't matter." Reynolds looked tired and, much to Gillian's dismay, defeated. "We got the man who was hiding in the room, the one in the video."

"Who is it?"

"Just a homeless guy. He found a way in once and kept coming back to sleep sometimes." The agent sighed and looked around, unable to sustain her gaze as he felt he had let her down. "We put out an e-fit and the local police recognised the coat he was wearing. Apparently he's been in the area for a while, mostly harmless."

"Then we have to go, now." Gillian said as she stood up, frantically gathering her things. "This isn't the place and I'm afraid Cal is right. Something is going on at the Wagners' house."

"Right, let me sort things out here-"

"No Ben, we need to get someone there, and fast." She held up the phone and showed it to him. "I got the recording of the call they placed, something is seriously off."

"Like what?"

"Where can we listen to it? I need a quiet place."

Reynolds seemed to think about it for a second then motioned her to follow him and they went back to the surveillance room. There, Gillian asked if they could connect her phone to the audio system and once it was all set she played the recording again. With no noisy background, better speakers and acoustic isolation, her initial impressions were amplified. Mrs Wagner seemed scared to have someone on the phone, no matter the topic, and all she wanted was to hang up and be done with it. Then they got to the point where Gillian had stopped, Miller asking about the husband, and whatever was holding the woman's nerve together seemed to fall apart. A cold shiver of terror ran down Gillian's spine, her mind immediately going to the pictures of the happy family, the kids…

"Oh my God!" She moaned. "Cal was right."

"What are you talking about?"

Reynolds asked, although he should have known better. As annoying as he could be, Lightman did have the tendency of being often right, and even if didn't understand the skills or sciences behind he knew that Foster knew her way around voices and words.

"Listen." She played back the recording, stopping on the marked switch in the woman's voice when the husband was brought up. "And here." She played a little more, pointing out how Mrs Wagner struggled to get rid of the man on the phone but was still determined to do so without hanging up on him and drawing too much attention. "Something is going on in that house, I don't think the family is safe."

"You're saying Warton might be there?"

"It would make sense." Gillian hated herself as she explained that, knowing full well Cal had been saying the same for hours and he had been shut down, by herself included. "If he's using the house as a base that would explain why nobody from the family has gone to work or school."

"But why let them answer the phone?"

"To avoid suspicion from friends and family. If the family goes completely off the radar for days someone would take notice. Ben," she grabbed his shoulders, pleading like he had rarely seen. "We need to go, now!"

Reynolds didn't need any further solicitation. He wasn't too stubborn or proud to recognise he had made a mistake, or a series of them in dismissing\Lightman's findings and theories, and he could easily set his priorities straight. A family's safety was now on the line along with everything else, and if redemption towards Lightman went through making sure they were ok he was all the more motivated.

A weight was lifted off Gillian's shoulders when he nodded, then he stormed out of the room and started barking orders on the radio, leaving two agents to wrap things up there and directing everybody else to the address in Clinton. He didn't need to look behind him to make sure Gillian was following, she actually got to the car before him and was clearly bursting with impatience as she waited for him to get in and set off the engine.

"I'm sorry, Foster," he said once they had started to speed away from the community center. "I should have-"

"Don't do that, Ben," she sighed, fumbling with the belt. "I did the same, we made a plan and we stuck with it. Nobody's to blame, ok?" He nodded, but he had the feeling neither of them would have taken it easy if something was to happen to the Wagners. "Let's just get there as soon as we can."

"I'm gonna call Miller," he said, browsing the navigation system connected to the phone to bring up his colleague's number. "He can get the local police to go out there, keep an eye on the house while we get there."

She nodded, turning around for a moment to see the sports centre getting smaller and smaller in the back window, wondering exactly how much time they had wasted there. When she turned back around, holding onto the seat as Reynolds sped through traffic, she heard him mumble something about Miller not picking up the phone. Acting on instinct, Gillian took her own phone and dialled Cal's number, waiting not so patiently for him to pick up, and the second she heard the click of the open line she started taking.

"Cal, it's me. I heard the recording and you were right, something's not right. I'm sorry it took me so long, we really thought we had something here but now we're going to Clinton. Is Miller with you? Reynolds is trying to reach him, we need him to call the local police-"

"He's not here."

The broken voice on the other side didn't seem strong enough to stop her monologue, yet those three words were all it took for Gillian's words to crash into a wall. She was the voice expert, yet for a second she didn't recognise the male voice and utter panic took over. Then, a file opened up somewhere in her mind and she realised that it was Loker…but the relief was short lived when she realised what he had just said.

"W-what?" She babbled, still with enough presence of mind to put the call on speaker.

"I- He snuck out. With Miller." Reynolds and Gillian looked at each other, unhappy and worried. "I don't know how, I - He said he was tired and wanted to lie down, I thought it was a good idea. I checked on him a couple of times and he was sleeping, I think… I'm sorry Foster, I should have-"

"Miller went with him?" Reynolds interjected, doing both her and Loker a favour.

"Yeah, looks like it. They are both gone, I…I think they planned this together, to distract me and slip away." The young man sounded devastated. "Lightman left his phone here, I think on purpose."

Of course he did, he knew I was going to give him an earful! Gillian thought, but there was absolutely nothing funny in that.

"Explains why Miller is not picking up," Reynolds grumbled, hastily stopping his phone from trying to call his colleague. "When did they leave?"

"I wasn't sure, I had to check the cameras." Loker paused, knowing they were not going to like the anwer. "They left more than half an hour ago, but I literally just only found out when you called his phone."

Silence followed his last words, the two people in the car processing the new information. Reynolds was fuming, not so much with Lightman but with Miller, who had been brought in because he was a stand up guy he trusted and instead had clearly been corrupted by the scientist. Gillian had no word, only terrifying thoughts as her more recent worst nightmare seemed to have come to life, because if Warton was keeping the Wagners hostage while using their house as a hideout then Cal was heading straight to him.

Because there was no doubt, for either of them, as to why Cal and Miller had decided to make a run for it.

I can tell by the reviews that nobody would be really surprise here... but do let me know what you think!