A/N) A little bit of Nick/Katherine Series 1 bickering, since I never seem to set stories in Series 1 any more. Please enjoy!
Trapped
"Are you actually kidding me?"
Katherine hits the closed doors with a balled-up fist, a dull thud echoing down the otherwise empty lift shaft. Nick just sighs. He had known when he first got up this morning that today was not going to be a good day, and when he had met up with an already grumpy Katherine in the foyer, before both stepping into the lift together on their way to the first tediously dull meeting of the day (and probably not to be the last), this feeling didn't exactly go away.
And now the lift has broken down. Great.
Half-heartedly, he tries jabbing at a few buttons on the device next to him, but they make no response, the one for the third floor still glowing yellow, since that's where the contraption was supposed to be taking them before it decided to throw a hissy fit and judder to a none-too-healthy-sounding halt just half a minute ago.
His boss is already checking her phone, before holding the screen right up in Nick's face and gesturing wildly at what he guesses is an email scheduling their conference. "Look. The meeting starts at nine, Nick. That's two minutes away. We're going to be late."
"Yep."
"Which is fine for you since you're not the main speaker, not being the CEO and all."
"There's not exactly much you can do about it. I'm sure they'll forgive you."
She laughs mirthlessly, slamming her hand against the locked door again and inexplicably trying to prise it open, not that Nick fancies scaling the inside of a lift shaft just to try and get to their meeting on time. "Yeah, I'm sure. Except they've already told me that they're tired of me making excuses. And I'm sorry, but being 'stuck in a lift' isn't exactly the most plausible one yet, Nick."
He can only shrug. "It's the truth."
After a minute of irate silence between the two, Katherine turns once again to meet his eyes, her clenched hand dropping from where she had been about to strike the prone metal for the third time. "What?" she glares. "I'm trying to get us out of here."
"By punching the wall?" Nick asks sceptically.
Her look is, as usual, deadly, especially since she knows he's right. "Have you got any better ideas, then?" she challenges. "I've just tried messaging security, but the signal is down on my phone. Why do I employ these so-called maintenance experts to keep Calimov up and running if things are just going to break down on me?"
"I'll call Zac," Nick sighs, already remembering how the Cuban employee likes to tease him and Katherine about how they always seem to end up alone, just the two of them, usually the result of their other co-workers wanting to be tactful and slipping away when nobody's looking. It's Phil's favourite pastime, in particular. Nick had known it was a bad idea to let Zac and Phil talk to each other, even for just five minutes while he went to get some papers for Katherine. Now it's a fully-fledged inside joke.
"I'm going to find a way to blame this on you if we're late for the meeting," Katherine informs him once Nick's finished the reluctant call to their co-worker, who sounds like he's trying to fight a giggle as he promises to get a maintenance team up to them right away. Probably already composing the hours of teasing that this will provoke. As usual, Katherine is blissfully unaware of their none-too-secret inside joke, but she doesn't look too keen on having to rely on Zac to get them out, of all people. Having given up on brute force, the woman is now leant back against the opposite wall to the one that he's slumped against, clicking her immaculate heels against the floor. "Just so you know."
"I'm always late for meetings, even if I turn up on time," Nick murmurs, with an absent yawn. "I'm just not often there mentally, you know?"
"I hadn't guessed," Katherine responds bitingly.
Of all the people he had to get trapped in a confined space with, it had to be the one person that had the ability to drive him completely up the wall. Nick copies Katherine's glare and they remain in sullen silence for another lengthy minute. Zac doesn't know what he's talking about. There is no way he and Katherine would ever -
Suddenly, as Nick argues with Zac's phantom smirking face, there's a cranking sound and both technicians straighten up as the lift slowly begins to jerk upwards again. Katherine's look of surprise is rare and quite enjoyable. "So it seems we're not to be trapped in a lift forever after all."
"Five minutes is hardly forever, Katherine," Nick responds, though he's also relieved. Much longer, and he would have probably called Eve and got her to have a little chat with the lift, even though his main goal was to try and protect her secret from Katherine. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and he could have always asked her to keep the CEO locked in there…?
She shoots another look at him, as if to remind him that their predicament is still somehow his fault, despite the fact she can't read minds. Nick hopes she can't read minds, anyway. "We're still three minutes late."
"Yep."
"Wanted some time alone, eh?" Zac's grin is the first thing they see as the lift doors finally creak open and let them tumble out into the brightness of the third floor.
"Yes. Yes, we did," Nick exhales as Katherine brushes past him, beckoning them both with one manicured finger and a tight incline of the head.
"C'mon, you two," she says sharply. "No need to make our entrance even more late, however fashionable it may be considered."
"I don't envy you, Nick," Zac confides once he's finished teasing Nick – "Did you two finally kiss?" "No, Zac, surprisingly, we didn't." - as they both follow the striding step of their boss along the third-floor corridor to one of the conference rooms where a group of doubtlessly fed-up department leaders are waiting for them. "Katherine doesn't look like she's in the best of moods."
Nick gives an empathetic nod, though he winks at the younger employee to let him know he's really only exaggerating (and so Katherine doesn't hear and make his working life a misery). "Longest five minutes of my life."