She was late. She didn't know for what exactly, nor why really since it was Sunday and she wasn't supposed to be at work to begin with. She didn't like any of it, but when she walked into the lab and saw Loker there, Torres felt somewhat vindicated.
Half pain, shared pain, she thought.
"You too uh?"
Loker was the first to speak, muddling his question in a yawn he didn't try to hide. Torres dropped her bag on a nearby chair and took off her jacket, just then noticing the woman inside the cube.
"Who's that?" She asked then.
"No idea."
Torres nodded to herself, despite that being not something she wanted to hear.
"Is Lightman here at least?"
"Yes." Loker confirmed while absently playing around with a pencil in between his fingers. "He told me to wait here and not to talk to her."
"As in…"
"As in really, don't talk to her."
Torres studied her coworker's face, seeing the truth in his words. So that wasn't one of the patented Lightman's tests, not a bait thrown at them to see if they would step up and show some initiative. In a way, she almost wished it was as that would have maybe explained the need for both of them to be there, because the alternative was much more annoying.
"So we just…wait here for him to tell us what is going on? No questions asked?"
"Just another day at the office…"
Loker's mumble was a true and sad statement about their work environment, but quite frankly when working for Cal Lightman that wasn't even the strangest thing he might have asked them to do. Apparently unphased, Loker passed her the bag of candies he was eating from and she took a handful, chewing them absently as she looked at the woman in the cube. She was middle aged, blond hair fading into white with a stylish touch, dressed casually but still formal. She looked relaxed, not at all bothered by the fact that she had been left alone in a fish tank, just minding her own business and looking at her phone.
"Is Foster around?" Torres asked, and he shrugged.
"I think so, I saw her car."
"Maybe we should go looking for her?"
"Lightman said to wait here."
"C'mon Loker. Do we really always have to do what he says?"
Loker was just about to respond that maybe no, they didn't have to, but he'd rather do it anyway just in case when Cal stormed inside the room. Torres nearly stood at attention like a soldier, betraying the words of resistance she had just spoken and making Loker chuckle. He stood up too, slower and with no tension whatsoever, more than anything intrigued by the arrival of his boss. Cal looked calm, at least by his normal standards. A bit frantic yes, but not in a nervous way that might hint there was some big case to tackle or, even worse, some skeleton from the past that had crawled out of a closet. Loker also didn't fail to notice that Lightman didn't bother locking the lab's door on the keypad, instead blocking it wide open with a chair for easier access.
And, strangest of all, he seemed happy to see them.
"Ah, there you are. About time Torres."
She rolled her eyes at him and he flashed her a grin, confirming Loker's feeling that at least it didn't seem to be anything bad.
"Well, we're here. What's going on then?"
"All in good time, Torres." He mumbled glancing at the cube, then fishing in his pants pockets.
"Who's that in there?"
"All in good time." He said again, finally coming up from his pocket search with his phone. "I just need to-"
"Dad?"
"Ohi Em!" Loker and Torres watched father and daughter exchanging a quick hug, a more than natural gesture which they still struggled to fit with the situation. "What took you so long?"
"Traffic, and I couldn't find-"
"Never mind, it's ok love." He quickly kissed her forehead then put his arm around her. "Now go to Gill's office, ok?"
"Dad, what's going on?"
"All in good time, darling." He said again, much to Torres's dismay.
On her way out, basically being pushed by her father, Emily stopped and turned around looking for answers in Loker and Torres without finding much. She left the room at Cal's further insistence, holding onto the backpack she was carrying, and before either Loker or Torres could ask what they were supposed to do he mumbled a quick "be right back" and stormed out.
"This keeps getting stranger and stranger."
Loker nodded knowingly at his coworker's statement, then his eyes shifted to the door that had remained open.
"Oh, you don't know half of it."
Torres blinked at him, confused and irritated by the fact that he wasn't exactly being helpful. Then curiosity took over and she followed the invisible trail of his eyes, watching in disbelief as Reynolds walked through the door. He immediately looked at them with a hopeful expression, clearly waiting for them to explain to him what he was doing there, and was just as quickly disheartened to find out they weren't going to be much of help.
"Ben, what- I mean, it's good to see you!" Loker launched forward in an honest but awkward pat on the shoulder. "It's been a while."
"Good to see you too." The agent mumbled, exchanging confused looks with Torres. "I think?"
"So the FBI is involved in this?" She asked then, pointing at the woman still calmly sitting in the cube.
"In what?" He followed Torres' hand and frowned. "Who is that?"
"We were kind of hoping you could tell us at this point," Loker sighed, going back to his chair and the bag of candies.
"How'd you get here then?"
"I got a call from Lightman earlier this morning. Said it was very important that I'd come." He responded to her question with a nervous huff. "Don't know what came over me really, I guess hearing him beg did do something."
"He begged you?" Loker nearly shouted, and Ben shrugged without failing to show a tiny hint of pride.
"Well, not in so many words but you know, voice tone and all."
"Voice tone?" Loker chuckled, honestly impressed.
"You can take the FBI out of the Lightman Group, but you can't take the Lightman Group out of the FBI."
They all turned around at Cal's voice, not surprised to see the satisfied grin on his face accompanying his words. What did take them all a bit off guard was his purposeful stride directly to Reynolds, who was too surprised and slow to react and counter the sudden bro-hug at the end of it. It was short but intense, possibly bone cracking to a less built man, then Cal pulled back as quickly as he had dived in and slammed his hand on Ben's shoulder, much more decisively than what Loker had done.
"It's good to see you, mate. Alive and all I mean. And thanks for coming."
"Are you even gonna tell us what for? And please don't say all in good time again!"
Cal stifled a laugh at Torres' plea, which didn't answer her nor eased her frustration. Even less when, as he opened his mouth to say something, Emily ran back inside the lab with a blue folder in her hands.
"Dad!" Cal turned around, just in time to receive a vigorous slap on his chest. "Are you for real?!"
"I'm afraid so, love." He grinned back.
"Dad, oh my God! I-"
"Hold that thought, Em. We've got things to do." He shushed her, gently but firmly. "Do you have it?"
"Yes!" Emily enthusiastically brandished the folder in her hands. "What else?"
"Nothing," he replied absently, while checking the content of the folder with a very attentive look. "Right. Go back there and get ready then. Nearly there."
Emily left, pretty much running out of the room with the same energy she had coming in. Cal watched her leave with a smile, then turned around and found himself facing three very curious and confused faces. Loker, Torres and Reynolds were staring at him, dumbfounded and, especially Torres, borderline annoyed by all that meaningless series of events.
"What? He asked then, Cal being Cal, he counted on the fact that they didn't really expect him to explain and smirked, walked past them and made his way to the cube.
Finally! Torres thought, hoping that meant things were about to start making sense.
She was, however, about to be disappointed. Cal entered the cube and addressed the woman, the microphones were off and they couldn't hear but judging by the short interaction they somewhat knew each other. Still clueless, with Torres fighting the temptation to go over the dashboard and flick the switch, they all watched Cal giving the woman the folder he had taken from Emily. She looked at the content, a few pages only apparently, nodded and signed them before putting them on the side.
"A new client then?"
Loker guessed, but at that point he was just going with the weird motions more than anything else. It was clear that Lightman wasn't going to share anything useful about the situation, at least for the time being. The one thing he was almost sure of was that it couldn't have been anything bad, not with Emily around acting the way she was, positively shaking with excitement, and with that in mind a harmless guessing game wasn't the worst way to keep himself occupied.
Maybe it was a new client, that would have explained the signatures, or a new investor injecting fresh cash into the firm. Plausible, however that scenario didn't go too well with Foster's apparent absence from the picture. She was the one normally dealing with that side of the business and for obvious reasons, with Lightman's people skills being what they were. Or maybe it had to do with Emily? Was she going to come working at the firm? That would have explained the excitement and how thankful she was toward her father. But what if-
He was just about to give up on his own game, realising he'd better off just waiting for things to unfold, when Cal pulled the controller for his pocket and blinded the walls of the cube.
"Sure, why not!" Torres commented sarcastically.
"You know what guys," Reynolds sighed. "I am getting some serious flashbacks about what working with you felt like."
"You mean working with him." Loker nodded over at the now blind cube, then offered Ben the bag of candies. "Would you believe he mellowed out recently?"
"Frankly Loker?" Reynolds chuckled while grabbing a couple of gummy bears. "That's a frightening thought!"
They all needed to ease the weird tension of the wait for the unknown, some even more ethereal version of Godot, and the small burst of hilarity was more than welcome. They were just about relaxing into it when Cal's voice boomed from inside the cube, loudly echoing in between the glass walls.
"You lot, quit laughing and come in here!"
The three looked at each other like scolded children caught with their hands in the cookie jar, then hesitantly made their way to the cube with Reynolds leading the charge. When they turned the corner and stepped in front of the open door they saw that the disposition inside had changed a little, the table had been moved from the centre to one side with the chairs and the mysterious woman behind it, leaving half of the space empty for them to occupy.
Countering their endless confusion with an equally unwavering smug grin, Cal instructed them on how to position themselves, placing Reynolds right by him at the opposite end from the door and Loker and Torres a couple of steps behind them and halfway to the door.
"That should do it," he muttered, satisfied, then fished the phone out of his pocket and sent a quick text. He looked at it for a moment afterwards, seemingly waiting for a response, and when it arrived he smirked and looked up at the woman. "Ready when you are, love."
"Ok." The woman spoke for the first time, checking the papers in front of her one more time before looking up at him. "Let's do this."
Despite the obvious call to action expressed by her words nothing happened, not right away at least.
Torres and Loker braced themselves for something, anything, instead they all just stood there, silent, exchanging questioning glances. Reynolds was even more confused, having been brought back to the group for unknown reasons after more than two years he felt like he had little to no chance to get a grasp of what was going on, and the clueless expression of the two people behind him did not help. The woman on the other side of the desk looked like she was in the loop, but also not too invested in whatever that was, and clearly the only one who knew was the one person who wasn't going to tell them. He looked at Cal next to him, calm as he had never seen him, standing uncharacteristically straight for a man with the adverse hostility toward a good posture as he remembered him to be. He was beyond calm, coming to think of it, so relaxed and zen in strong contrast with the confusion his state generated around him.
Eventually, much like Loker and Torres, he gave up in trying to understand the situation. He hadn't dealt with Lightman and his antics for a while and Reynolds found great solace in knowing that there wasn't much he could have done anyway.
Then, as somewhere around them the sound of heels approaching filled the awkward silence, there was a sudden and decisive change in Cal's attitude. He straightened up even more, pulled his shoulders back and puffed up his chest a bit, his eyes immediately going to the entrance of the cube with a huge smile on his face. If possible, the smile became even bigger when Gillian Foster walked in, immediately locking her eyes on his and returning the loving smile. She was holding a couple of pink roses in her hand, matching the colour of her dress and making a nice chromatic contrast with the blue pendant around her neck. Emily was right behind her, simply beaming with happiness and with such a smug grin on her face that it would have been impossible to question her genetic baggage.
And it was becoming next to impossible for the people crammed inside to cube not to understand what was about to go down.
"Holy shit!"
Torres muttered in between her teeth, barely aware of the way her lips quickly morphed into a smile and the tears gathering in the back of her eyes. Loker looked at her, too stricken by the same realisation to even say anything, while Reynolds glanced over at Cal only to be nearly knocked off by the warm expression on his face as he never took his eyes off of Foster.
Gillian came closer, both of them now smiling so hard and wide that it must have put a strain to their face muscles. Then Cal stretched out his hand inviting her to take it, which she did immediately stepping even closer as he turned towards her. They stood there, inches away from each other and staring into each other's eyes, oblivious of the people around them for quite some time. Eventually, Emily rolled her eyes at them and gently grabbed hold of Gillian's elbow, pulling her away from her father and positioning her in front of the table.
Ever the rebellious type, Cal flashed his daughter a loving but scolding look and turned slightly to face the woman behind the table, not forgetting to put his hand out for Gillian to take hold off before the now not so mysterious guest spoke.
"Dear friends, we are gathered here today to witness Cal and Gillian…"
After "Blind Spot" ( s/14028956/1/Blind-spot) I thought we could use something lighter... Fluff isn't always my thing but let me know what you think!
