Hello, to the 3 regulars especially! How ya'll doing?!

Eteri: I had a lot of fun writing the last chapter, and even more imagining Cal trying so hard to give themselves away. As for Torres and Loker...more coming

It wasn't long after lunch time, but she had barely had time to notice.

With the Young's case successfully wrapped up, Torres had been inundated with her fair share of paperwork and archiving duties. She wasn't a fan of the admin part of her job, but that day it really helped to keep her mind away from things, she was starting to wonder, maybe she was indeed just imagining. Foster and Lightman being who they were, him especially…ok, maybe she wasn't imagining things but there was a high chance that they were just messing with their employees for the sake of it. It wasn't Foster's style, but then again she had embraced her darker side a bit more since her former patient had been killed, probably thinking if she had been more prone to mistrust some situations Claire would have still been alive.

Still…

"Whoa!" She gasped then all of a sudden, watching as Loker came into the lab looking like he had just seen a ghost. "What happened to you?"

He opened his mouth to say something but the only thing that he could produce was a painful moan, then he pointed behind him with his finger and shook his head slightly, his mouth o-shaped in some kind of stupor.

"I-" He blinked a couple of times, still seemingly flabbergasted by what he was struggling to say. "I think you might be right."

"About what?"

"Foster and Lightman," he said, feeling a very strange taste in his mouth as those words came out in the way his mind was associating them.

That got Torres' attention immediately and she jumped on her feet, nearly running towards the door to peek at the hallway as if it was implied they were on their way. But she didn't see them, only a few coworkers coming and going for late lunches and coffees, so she rolled her eyes and went back inside the lab.

"Where are they?"

"In the breakroom," he whispered, still astonished and slowly sitting down as if he needed to recover from a shock.

"What are they doing there?" She asked, bracing herself for the answer when she thought about the electric charge she had previously seen between them and gulping at Loker's absent head shaking. "Oh my God, did you see them-"

"No, God no! I would have gauged my eyes out!" He shuddered. "They're just…sitting there, having lunch and chatting away."

"That you find shocking! Not the way they were mentally undressing each other in the middle of an interrogation?!"

"They're holding hands, right there on the table!" Loker moaned. "Just, leaning into each other, whispering in each other's ears and laughing it off like teenagers. I think she might have even fed him something, like a piece of chocolate or whatever. And they're smiling," he shook his head again, slowly, baffled by the horror of the thought, "so much smiling."

Torres started nodding to herself, slowly, clenching her jaw as she thought about Loker's summary and factored that in with what she had seen.

"So they are-"

"I don't even wanna think about it." He cut her off, shaking his head and closing his eyes before reopening them in terror. "Or imagining it! Oh Lord!"

"Why don't they just tell us? I mean," she sighed and sat down, her too trying to kick some oddly specific images out of her mind, "they are clearly not trying to hide it, why do it like this?"

"Maybe they are just messing with us?" He asked, hopeful she would agree and end the nightmare going around in his head.

"Maybe…but why? I can see Lightman doing it but not Foster. And why now?" Torres asked, more to herself than to him. "And of all the things they could have fun with, why pretend to be together?"

"Oh I don't think they are faking that part!" Loker shivered again. "Yeah, he's always checking her out, I mean…" He blushed briefly, he still didn't go for married women but Dr Foster no longer was one and she could easily catch men's attention. "And they've always had a very touchy friendship…but trust me, what I just saw had nothing to do with lust and physical attraction. That was something else." He sighed, slowly recovering from the shock and getting his mind in gear. "That's how they are messing with us."

"By being together but not telling us they are together."

"I think it's a bait, some other stupid loyalty or work ethic test," Loker stated, nodding to himself as the idea cleared up the fog in his mind. "They want to see what we do, if we are going to mind our own business or show that we found out and say something."

Torres bit at her bottom lip, thinking that crazily sounded more plausible than the bosses pretending to be an item for their own amusement. It made sense, and it was a move Foster would probably get behind; she had done the same when they had faked the lawsuit to wash out Loker, and more likely she had stood behind Lightman on similar occasions when he had tested their ability to step up and show their contribution to the company.

"Son of a bitch!" She moaned then, looking at Loker who had now fully recovered and seemingly ready to hatch some kind of plan. "What are we going to do?"

"I say," he stood up and approached, standing in front of her with a very determined expression on his face, "we respond in kind."

Emily watched her father finish the food in his plate with a pout on his face, as if he was a child who had just been told to finish all his veggies if he wanted any dessert, then using the fork to stab the pieces of meat with the verve of a wannabe killer rather than eating like a human being. Not for the first time that evening, she looked over at Gillian sitting at the table at the other side of her, and the woman smiled and shrugged as if to say she shouldn't worry about it.

Concern wasn't really the issue, Emily had seen enough of the two of them together, both as an official couple and not, to know that if only one of them seemed a bit off there was nothing to worry about. Still, her father had been acting strange since when they had come home from work, despite the fact that they had successfully closed another case and cashed in a generous paycheck. Which was why, once dinner was over, Emily declined the invitation to watch a movie with them and opted for going up to her room.

"What's with her?" Cal asked after she had left. "You two love teaming up to make me watch terrible movies."

"What's with her? Cal!" Gillian gasped, staring him down with a hard look. "What's with you? You've been in a terrible mood all night."

"Have I?"

Gillian studied him for a few silent moments, then rolled her eyes as she realised he really was clueless about that. However, instead of pushing the issue there she sighed and stretched her hand out, guiding him to the bedroom when he took it. Once in the room they sat down on the edge of the bed and Gillian wrapped her arms around his waist, leaning in to settle her face in the crock of his neck.

"You really wanted them to see it, didn't you?"

Cal only grunted in response, which made her chuckle. Since they had gotten together he had shown her a lot of his sweet side, unafraid to open up and express his feelings in a way someone less versed in his personality would have found uncharacteristic. Any one of those occasions had been a fulfilling experience for her, not that she had ever thought he was the type of person to safely guard his feelings, but it was still strangely reassuring to see that sometimes he would still be a grumpy man who didn't want to come across as mushy.

"I didn't think it was going to be that hard," Cal mumbled then, dropping back on the bed with a frustrated sigh. "We could have hardly been more clear!"

Gillian thought to herself that there would have been plenty of ways to make it clearer, but she felt he didn't need any kind of encouragement on that. Besides, she found his frustration somewhat charming, seeing through it that he was more eager to be able to live their relationship out in the open than what he would let transpire. Then she sighed and kicked off her shoes, moving to sit with her back on the headboard and guiding his head to rest on her lap, absently caressing his forehead.

"Look at the bright side," she said then.

"Being?" He growled.

"We did what we said, just went with it. And we got to spend time together, quality time." Cal closed his eyes and took in a deep breath, lulled by her gentle touch and the sound of her voice as he recalled how nice it had been to have lunch together in the breakroom, eating at a table instead of hiding away in one of their offices and balancing food boxes on their knees. "And it was kind of fun to see the confusion on Torres' face when I suggested you'd call Zoe to help out."

"That was so hot, by the way," he grinned, his face lightening up for the first time in hours, letting Gillian knew had found a way in.

"Not gonna lie, that was fun," Gillian agreed with a smirk, then watched him move about until he sat next to her.

"I've been a bit of a plonker, haven't I?" He asked then, giving her a face that was both ridden with painful self-awareness and apologies. "I should probably go talk to Emily."

"You think?" Gillian teased knowingly, but when he rolled his eyes and motioned to get up she quickly grabbed hold of him to keep him close. "Let's talk about it first."

"Have you changed your mind?"

"No Cal, I haven't." She relaxed against his body, melting away in the familiarity of his proximity. "And it felt way too good today to go back."

"It did," he agreed, his hand absently caressing the back of her neck and shoulders. "Maybe we should be more direct."

"Cal, we are not going to make out in the office just to prove to people we are together."

"I didn't mean that, but thank you for crashing my dreams, love!" He vehemently protested, but the touch of his hand on her skin stayed gentle and delicate. "I mean maybe we should just tell them, communicate it officially to the staff."

"No, I think you were right yesterday. It would look like we assume that it's a big deal for everybody and clearly it's not." She paused, not for any particular reason aside from the action of his other hand, now under her clothes and not so innocently scouting upwards. "Maybe they didn't say anything just because they don't care that much about it."

"Their loss," he whispered, his tongue and lips now dancing around her ear, his hands holding her hips as he rolled on top of her. "What should we do then?"

Gillian took her time to respond, since focusing on anything was becoming suddenly extremely complicated. Cal's mouth had moved down to her neck, skipping her mouth altogether, and was now following a path traced by his hands as he started undoing the buttons on her blouse. She was already breathing fast, feeling the anticipation and knowing it was pushing away the will to wrap up their conversation, and could feel his desire growing along with hers. She shivered slightly when his hands expertly manoeuvred to remove her skirt and panties, pushing them down just enough to give him access.

"Nothing," she managed to say, choking on her words when she felt him leaving light teasing kisses on the inside of her legs. "Nothing more than what we did today."

"So we just-" It might have not looked like it but Cal was having a hard time keeping his words straight, knowing that she was ready to stop talking as much as he was and finding himself with his nose inches away from the promised land, "keep going into work together, hand in hand?"

"Yes," Gillian moaned, her hand reaching out for the back of his head to give it an encouraging push in the right direction.

"Having lunch, holding hands." His tongue flicked inside her, and this time when she said yes it was louder and far more passionate and it had nothing to do with their behaviour at work. "Doing what-"

This time the directive of her hand was for more than just a hint and that was why Cal didn't get to finish his sentence, his mouth far more engaged in something else from then on.

The morning after they were at it again.

Once again they arrived together in Cal's car, standing close and whispering into each other's ear in the elevator. This time, when the doors opened on their floor it was Gillian who made a not so subtle move and put her arm around him, resting her hand on his hips as he had done to her a million times. Cal grinned, clearly pleased, and he was still smiling like an idiot as they walked past the main desk.

"Good morning Anna."

"Good morning Dr Fo-"

The young woman had looked up from her screen ready to greet back the boss, but was left unable to finish the sentence when Foster walked past, smiling and careless, with her bag in the left hand and the right firmly seized on Lightman's hip. She blinked, startled, noticing that he was smiling too in a way she didn't even think he was capable of. Then, mercifully, the phone rang and she dropped back to reality. But she kept watching them as they walked down the corridor, frustrated nobody else seemed to be around to witness that so she wouldn't think that it was just all in her head, and struggled to focus on the caller when she saw them split right before turning the corner, Lightman leaving a kiss on her cheek before they did so.

Contrary to what Anna thought, she was not the only one watching. Torres and Loker were in the lab, crowding the space in front of his laptop where they had been following the bosses' entrance on the security cameras. Lightman might have knowledge and access to all of them, including some they didn't know were around the office, but the one pointing at the main entrance was there for everyone to enjoy. Hiding away in the lab, the two employees had been waiting for Cal and Gillian to arrive, discussing their plan as they did so. Of course, none of what they had discussed would have applied if the "business" partners had shown no sign of exaggerated intimacy, but since they had come looking like they were just about ready to jump each other the plan stayed on.

"Alright," Torres huffed then, standing up and releasing the hair she had kept in a pony-tail until that moment. Then she took a small vanity mirror from her bag and checked herself, finishing the preparation by undoing the top two buttons of her blouse revealing the laced rim of what was underneath. "Let's do this."

Loker bit his tongue to hold back comments on what he thought of her last adjustment, and instead just nodded and watched her leaving the room. Whether it was conscious or not, he stared at her a bit more than necessary as she walked away, thinking back at that random night he had gotten lucky enough to see what was underneath, then blinked away and went back to work. It wasn't ideal, but they had decided for a pinch move in more than one wave, and none of it would have worked without them doing their job.

That was why Torres had a folder in her hands while she walked towards Cal's office, taking deep breaths and trying to steady her nerves before she got there. She turned the corner carefully, just in case they were still in the hallway, but when she saw the coast was clear she gave herself a last mental pep talk and went in.

I hope you don't mind a fragmented chapters, but I do need to cut where necessary,

Good news is, this will now be five chapters in total instead of one.

Let me hear your voice people, whether you are liking this or not