The office felt numb. A bit too quiet. A bit detached. He could look out over the lobby and see various employees go about their business, but it was more like watching a film half-heartedly over the shoulder of somebody else. Detached, uninvolved. Numb.

Adam tried his best to recline in his chair, but he kept leaning, kept tapping and shaking the leg. He tried going on the net, find some news or something to keep him occupied. The front page was about the Milwaukee attack, and his inbox was empty. Typical. He shut down the computer and rose from the chair that was far too lenient. He walked to the gigantic window, nothing to see. Just Cindy doing her job. Typical. Contemplating the amount of activities one can perform in an office, Jensen found himself on the couch as his final, desperate move. Typical. Adam thought about going down to the cafeteria for a mug of coffee or whatever they had, but that was before someone finally knocked on his door.

"It's open!" Adam called, almost a little too enthusiastically, instantly regretting it as the door slowly opened its maw.

"Adam?" An inquisitive, familiar voice called through the small opening in the wall. Adam glimpsed the features of Malik for the third time that night, and immediately felt a little more insecure, what would she think of him, huddled away in his office after a his first day at work in over half a year? Granted, it was not your typical day at work by an incredibly long shot, but still. Huddling is huddling.

Malik carefully walked into the newly dusted office, taking all the details in as she walked to his desk. She decided to make it her seat, preferring to face a person when she talked with them, unlike some of the geeks in the lab.

"So I heard that you not only saved the hostages, but you did it without even one of those punks getting killed?" Faridah broke aura of silence with a tone tinged with the slight flavour of disbelief, shattering the silent trance radiating from the stoic man on the couch as soon as she had made herself comfortable on said man's desk.

Adam seemed to process her words before he looked up at her. "As far as I know. Don't know about SWAT though." he casually admitted, his face never changing from his natural expression of "I'm watching you".

"You um, don't seem happy about that, chief." Faridah half-heartedly chuckled, unsure of what was romping about in Jensen's mind.

Adam slowly rose from his couch to stand in front of the rose-tinted windows.

"I don't know, it feels like, it didn't really matter in the end." He said, staring through the shield of glass. He could imagine Malik's confused expression behind his back and decided to elaborate.

"Before I joined SWAT, I had to face the reality that most of the gangbangers and muggers, even some of the murderers I arrested would be out in a handful of months with good behaviour. Most of them were small fry, but they still hurt people, and after little time in a cell, they were free to hurt more people. People that didn't deserve to have those kinds of things haunt them when they tried to sleep, provided they weren't dead." Adam added the final words with a slight grimace.

"So what exactly, did I accomplish back there, aside from giving those purists another reason to hate augs?" Adam finished as he turned to face Faridah once more.

Swinging her legs, the VTOL pilot mulled over the security expert's words for a handful of silent, swishing seconds. She turned her head to the man framed by soft red light.

"You gave everyone else a reason to love augs." Faridah said with a knowing smile. Sensing Jensen's hidden, confused eyes, she also decided to elaborate.

"You gave the nightly headlines a happy ending, something SWAT couldn't guarantee. Even a small team of their best couldn't have pulled it off cleanly and they knew that." Malik's frame slid off the desk as she spoke, her boots making no sound as she made contact with the floor.

"Only someone like you could have resolved this like... like..." Her voice trailed downwards as she struggled to find an appropriate comparison.

"Like a Saturday morning cartoon from the 90's!" she exclaimed excitedly with her hands framing the imaginary numerical figure in front of her. The pilot's eyes were lit up with the sweet, sweet flavour of nostalgia.

Jensen's left eyebrow rose in a slightly confused way. Fortunately, a corner of his mouth also rose in amusement. Whether it was at the adorable display of excitement or at the comparison she had made, it seemed to have shattered the moody casing he seemed so determined to hide inside.

Malik realized what she must've looked like from Jensen's eyes and started to laugh at the image she had created of herself. She had really gone too far. Cartoons from the 90's? Really?

After her laughter had subsided she tried to fix her slight blunder. Straightening up she looked at Jensen's veiled eyes and "Aaaanyway, what I meant is that... Purity First didn't hesitate to take hostages, and they didn't hesitate to try and kill them when shit hit the fan, with toxic gas no less." Malik added the weapon to her sentence with visible distaste.

"You however, saved everyone, including the bad-guys. Even the ones that didn't deserve it. You know what we call those?" Malik asked as she placed her hand on his shoulder.

Jensen either didn't know, or he was taken aback by the sudden touch of his pilot. Either way, he showed no sign of answering as he faced Malik again.

"Heroes." She said, her eyes reflecting small dots of light like two miniature galaxies.

He smiled.

"Thanks, Malik."

"No Adam, thank you." Faridah said with a good-natured laugh as she turned to walk out the door.

"I mean it Malik." He called after her as she was just about to leave the room.

"I know you do!" She called back as she closed the door with a click.

Then it struck her.

She had made stone-faced Jensen smile.

That thought made her feel positively giddy. She waltzed back to the VTOL with a slight skip in her step. Unsure why, but nonetheless happy.