A/N: Thank you everyone for reviewing the first chapter! I was truly so nervous about it. I'm still having some trouble with the mistakes, but I think I'll start to improve as I go on. For example, I thought that they lived in the same apartment building, like the two ends of the building were connected for some reason, but then I realized that the agents just live in two separate buildings that are very close to each other. Also, if you have some plot ideas, you should totally fill me in. This is sort of a filler-chapter. Doing college work and keeping up with writing can be difficult. Thanks once again lovelies! 3

Rated K+

Chapter Two – Professionals

-Riley's POV-

The whole rest of the day, the agents tried to avoid each other. They'd sort of laughed the kiss off earlier. Neither of them decided to add that detail in their report -not that they were trying to sneak around or anything. They just didn't feel it necessary to mention, as there was still some measure of awkwardness in making out like a teenager with your partner.

She left for a lunch break and returned to finish her report. After staying still for too long, Riley went exploring down the corridors of the Cyber Unit, still trying to process things. Her hands twisted together.

Gabriel kissed her. And she'd kissed back. This was not good.

They were supposed to be professional agents. She was his protector, assigned a duty to keep him safe. Not have fantasies of playing tonsil-hockey with him. Oh, but he played well, she caught herself thinking.

God, she didn't even think of him like that. Sure, she liked their constant flirty banter sometimes. And if she had to admit, Gabriel wasn't unattractive. He had his rugged good looks and charm going for him, as well as his intelligence. And on occasion, he could be a really sweet guy. But that was all. She thought of him as a friend, a trustworthy partner. Besides, she was a professional who didn't like getting her feelings sorted into the mix.

She had reached the end of the corridors and headed back in the direction of her desk. What was she thinking anyway? She'd only got caught up in the moment. The finger she'd been twirling her hair with dropped.

They were just causing a distraction on a completely normal mission. And they were acting. Anyway, Gabriel was probably over it by now. Riley decided to put it in the back of her mind too. She wasn't going to get any work done like this.

Arriving at her desk, she pulled her feet under her to sit slouching in front of her laptop. The day was almost over anyway, so why not be comfortable? She smoothed down the skirt of the dress she still had on from earlier and pulled her hair up in a neat bun.

Not twenty minutes after checking her email, her computer started being difficult. It wouldn't let her access the internet even though the Wi-Fi signal was fine. She grunted. She knew how to solve this problem easily, but was too stubborn to do it. She would not call him.

Ten more minutes and she was close to throwing her computer out the window. They were in Cyber Command for Pete's sake - shouldn't the computers work best here? For some reason this was always the opposite case for her. Riley's hand hovered over her phone. Still uncompromising, she placed her back down in her lap. She would get a new computer if she had to.

Riley heard slow footsteps approaching her desk and sat upright. She saw the man she was desperately hoping not to see, but had to admit she was a little relieved. As it seemed, she might be saved from arranging a laptop funeral after all.

-Gabriel's POV-

After handing in his report, Gabriel walked back to his desk and sat down, trying to process the events of that day. He knew the cover-kiss didn't mean anything to Riley, so he decided he felt the same way. He got up and started pacing because of one little detail of the mission that bothered him, though.

The guardsmen who came out of the building earlier had suddenly stopped approaching the kissing agents. At first he'd thought that maybe their acting was really that good. But wasn't the whole situation a little too easy?

First off, it really hadn't been too hard to act like he was her boyfriend. He thought his acting had been phenomenal, not to mention hers. It wasn't like he was actually in love with Riley or anything. She just happened to be gorgeous and made the whole ordeal of 'distracting' a pleasant experience. He had no problem kissing beautiful women. She was a great partner who would always have his back, and he had no intention of ruining what they had by getting himself all worked up over one little kiss. Okay, two, not-so-little kisses, he corrected.

But back to his point – wouldn't the dangerous men who were ready to kill anyone who made trouble for them shoot people who were sneaking around on the spot? The first man, Paco, seemed gullible enough to believe them. But Gabriel had no doubt that he was about to give word to the rest of the men about the suspicious couple walking around their hideout. The second group of men who were coming towards them during the agents' kiss just backed off without approaching them. That behavior seemed odd.

He didn't believe in coincidences, so he looked around the building for an empty room to escape to. He used the chip in his head to access his memory and crosscheck it with the footage from the street cameras around the block they were on.

Suddenly, the images of the earlier mission came into view and replaced his vision of the Cyber Command Unit building. The scene was frozen in place, like a 3D-snapshot of the incident, frozen in time.

The first thing he saw was a couple making out on the side of the street. Wait a minute…was that really…? He blushed anew and momentarily forgot what he was looking for. He stepped closer to the frozen agents kissing. He opened his mouth, but no words came out.

He was looking at himself but that wasn't him. The man he was looking at was some other guy, bent on seducing the girl he currently had pinned up against a wall. His hands were all over her, his face desperately close to hers. It gave him a funny feeling when he directed his attention to the image of Riley.

It was like his emotions came knocking right back into him again. Her pink cheeks were pressed right up against his, one hand fisted in his jacket (he didn't even remember that happening), leaving no space between them. His heart clenched. Gabriel couldn't stop staring voyeuristically the way they looked totally enrapt with each other's mouths. He couldn't help but want to return to the moment, actually return, and see what it felt like all over again. She really was a brilliant kisser-

Gabriel shook his head and snapped out of it when he felt a light pressure in his lower abdomen. He remembered why he was there in the first place and turned around towards the men. The one closest to them was holding a cell phone in his hand and held a hand up towards the men behind him. The one directly to his side was also holding up a phone, presumably taking a photo of something. He gained access to each phone.

First, Gabriel pulled up a picture taken on the second man's phone of the SUV's license plate. Then, he traced the call of the first man to a phone inside. The first man's burner phone was linked to another, and Gabriel guessed he was calling the man in charge. He just had to find out the name of the head-honcho of this whole scheme, which he was sure he would learn soon since Lillian had already sent in a team to surround the building an hour ago.

One last thing caught his eye. A third guardsman was opening the door to a discreet vehicle a little ways away from the building. He was thankful that the security camera footage angles were in his favor today. He pulled the license from that car, noting it was stolen. He was looking towards the commotion with a look that could only be described as loathsome. Looks like we pissed off someone, Gabriel thought.

He realized there was a slight cause to worry, however, and he accessed a later moment when they were in the vehicle just to be sure. "Damn," he said aloud. As far as he could tell by glancing through the side-mirrors in the car, the third man had been following them. Accessing a string of further memories, he saw that the car stopped along with them at a gas station. The blurry footage from the station showed that the suspicious man had got out of his car and bumped into the SUV on his way to the store. They'd left before he came back out, but Gabriel was sure there was a bug placed on the car.

And as it just so happened, Riley had taken the same vehicle home for lunch, leading the man right to their apartment buildings.

Dammit.

He knew she'd returned back already, but now the guardsmen knew where she lived. And that meant he also probably knew where Gabriel lived.

He closed his eyes. When he opened them again he was back in the empty room, hands shaking in anger. He had to tell Riley.

Suddenly his anger was replaced with apprehensiveness. They still hadn't talked since they got back. His usually confidence seemed to have disappeared, so he did what any mature adult would do.

He hacked her computer and waited for her to call him.

He waited nearly a half-hour for her frustration to build. He even changed every password she had on her laptop, but his phone remained quiet.

Sighing, he ran a hand through his hair and started walking towards her office. They couldn't avoid each other forever.

"Having troubles?" He sauntered his way up to her desk.

"None at all," she replied unwaveringly.

Gabriel motioned towards the computer screen that was giving her away. "I was just going to email you about something and I noticed your laptop seemed to be in need of tech support," he lied.

"Wait, you can check my computer for viruses when you send emails?" She paused and said, "Or did you just need an excuse to come see me?" Her head tilted up in his direction.

Gabriel looked back with fake indignation. "I would never do such a thing. In fact, I'm appalled by your accusations, Agent Neal." He accessed the chip and slowly started healing her laptop.

"Yeah, right. Well it's a good thing you can fix what you broke." She noticed her laptop had stopped freaking out.

"I didn't do this, I'm telling you. I bet you made the problems yourself so that you could have an excuse to call me over." He lightly pushed her arm on the last word.

"You wish. You can just admit you wanted to talk to me," she retorted.

Gabriel just chuckled and had his own reply on his tongue before she interrupted. "Wait, you did say you had something to talk about. What were you planning to tell me?" He didn't reply sarcastically when he saw her serious expression.

After he told her his thoughts about the man following them, she put her face in her hands on the desk. "And I stupidly led them home. Why couldn't I have just eaten here?" Riley groaned.

She was really blaming herself for this whole mess? Gabriel wondered incredulously.

"How can you think this was your fault? You didn't know." This made Riley turn back to him and look at him directly in the eye for the first time since he'd walked in.

"Well, first of all I never go home for lunch. I don't know why I did today." Of course she knew why, but she wasn't going to tell Gabriel that she was avoiding him. "Second of all, I should've been paying more attention on the ride home and noticed we were being followed." She got up to pace in front of him. She had tugged the jacket on again, feeling her earlier warmth leave her.

Gabriel could feel the anxiety rolling off her in waves. He held some of the blame too. "Well you'd have thought I'd noticed earlier with the chip. I guess I maybe got ...got a little caught up in our, uh, distraction myself." He flinched because she'd turned on him with a glare.

"How did you manage to notice those new details about the guardsmen anyway? Looking back upon fond memories, eh?" She raised her eyebrow and smirked.

A faint blush appeared on his cheeks and he mumbled, "No." He really didn't want to get slapped so he told her the truth. "I was thinking that the guards left us alone a little too easily when we, you know, when we-"

"We kissed?" She asked. When he flinched again, she rolled her eyes. "C'mon Gabriel, like you said, it was a distraction." How many times did they need to keep going over this? "It wasn't real, so stop acting like a teenage boy. I mean, not that it wasn't a terrible kiss-" Her smirk fell when she realized her slip of the tongue.

"Wasn't a terrible kiss?" Gabriel repeated, feigning hurt. Her smirked though and added, "So you enjoyed it then."

She did smack him after that. "Oh you know what? Just focus Gabriel!" He noticed her chest puffing out defiantly. Exquisitely, he amended internally.

Looking back into her eyes, he saw that they had darkened a little. Hmm, so he'd been right on point with his accusation.

"I'd rather talk about why you're blushing." His feet were moving of their own accord to stand two steps closer to her. Teasing her had to be one of his new favorite things.

"Why do you want to talk about it so much, Gabriel?" She smirked again, and added, "Maybe you think I enjoyed it just as much as you obviously did." Always one to stand her ground, she hadn't moved an inch in response to his closer proximity.

"Hey, that's not-" Gabriel started. He was interrupted by the sound of high heels rounding the corner and Lillian's approaching voice. The two agents jumped away from each other and waited for their boss to enter the room, hanging up her phone.

Lillian looked at the pair of them, flushed faces and eyes avoiding each other. Deciding to ignore whatever she interrupted, she asked, "What's this I heard about a man tailing you this morning?"

Gabriel forgot that he'd emailed her a short summary of the details on his way to visit Riley. They filled her in on the rest of the story, even the distraction.

"That wasn't mentioned on the reports," she questioned. The agents tried to explain themselves, but she sternly ordered, "This partnership is going to be kept professional, I expect." Riley and Gabriel nodded furiously and prepared themselves to endure their reprimand.

"Professionals," Lillian stressed, "Don't care about embarrassing their partners by putting actual details of a report in their case. Loads of agents have used that distraction technique, anyway." Lillian made it a lot simpler when she put it that way and acted like the partners were being ridiculous (which they now realized that they were). After telling the agents to amend their reports, she discussed what was to be done about their apartment building situation.

In the end, it was decided that Gabriel and Riley would move to a safe house for a couple days while a detail was put on their street, watching for any sign of the third man returning. Effective immediately. They protested at first, saying they were more than capable of protecting themselves in their own homes, being specially trained agents and all. Of course, Lillian would hear none of it. She wanted Gabriel in an especially safe place so the chip wouldn't be put in harm's way anymore than it already was on a daily basis.

The agents sighed and grabbed their go-bags that they'd prepared in case of emergency. It was their own fault that they'd been too busy seeing how far they could tease the other, like some sort of hormone-fueled competition, instead of paying attention to the mission at hand.

They silently agreed to be perfectly well-behaved the next few days. After all, what could go wrong when two partners, who obviously had no real romantic interest in each other, were assigned to a nice, quiet safe house all alone for a few days?

A/N: Okay so this was really short! They talked about the incident… I know there wasn't much romance in this one but justttt wait till next chapter – coming REALLY soon. ;) I hope you enjoyed it. Please feel free to leave reviews. :D