First thing first, I owe some of you some replies that I missed on chapter 36.

Tori: not that I liked to see them fight, but sometimes it would have been healthy I think to get a little ugly and get it all out. Especially for Gillian, although I always thought that she was careful in picking her fights (literally)

CookieSprinkles: thanks for the tip, I will check it out! Sounds fun. I wish we had seen Gillian drunk more, clearly there was a lot of potential there!

Heads-up: I will be posting again tomorrow, then a couple of days break before we kick off a new "arc".

Now: ready to find out what was in the second envelope?

On Monday morning after the Mayor's party, most of the Lightman Group employees dreaded going into work. For weeks they had all lived the illusion that their bosses breaking up wasn't going to bring the company down, then the past week had been nothing but a minefield of interactions between the two, proving to some of them that they had just been lucky so far. None of them had been at the Mayor's party, but rumours had been going around that the business partners had arrived and left separately with little interaction, fueling everybody's fears that things were about to get damn rocky around there.

Which was why none of them expected the scene waiting for them when they came in, and all of them were terrified by it.

The lobby was a mess, with white plastic tarps draped over furniture and other objects all packed together to make room for the workers and their tools. Anna was watching from a corner, not sure how to feel about the fact that her domain, the reception desk, was temporarily out of reach. She had been the first one through the door, as usual, and the one buzzing in the maintenance for the building bringing along the external contractors. They had marched in with ladders, tool boxes, crates and more, looking around and discussing amongst themselves how to best proceed.

And once settled, they had started to tear down the letters on the wall.

Anna had started sweating when one of the workers had climbed up the ladder, steadied himself and hammered at the top of the big T, and when the letter had come down with a loud chunk echoing in the lobby she had nearly passed out. Yet, she hadn't been able to look away, or to ask for clarification for that matter. They had paperwork, she had seen it, so she knew they were supposed to be there…but what the hell were they doing?!

The same question went through everybody's mind as one after the other the staff kept coming in, with horror being the most popular reaction. Sure, things have been bad since after the bosses' fight but could they be that bad? What did it mean, taking down the Lightman Group sign like that? Had that fight finally broken the delicate balance, nullified the effort they had made to keep everybody happy after their split? Was that the first step to closing up shop for good, for them to start polishing up their CVs and look for new jobs?

Soon, the office felt like a powder keg about to explode. Most people had decided to keep their heads down and work, thinking that if the rumours going wild were right they might need to show their value: the rest, a silent and lost minority, was gathered around in the lobby trying to stay out of the way of the workers, watching silently as they kept tearing down the sign one letter at the time. By 9am, the time when Dr Foster would usually arrive, they were just about removing the I and pretty much everybody was about ready to panic.

Gillian came in while on the phone, rushing a bit and looking like she had a million things on her mind and very little time to deal with them. That didn't help to ease the questions and fears of the troup lined in the lobby, obviously waiting for either of the bosses to come in and shine a light on the events, especially when she seemed to walk past them paying no attention to what was going on.

She was just about to get past when Loker elbowed Torres and gave her an encouraging look, to which she replied with stupor and silently asking why her. But both him and Anna kept insisting silently, so she rolled her eyes and sighed, swallowing down as she gathered courage.

"Dr Foster," she called out then, just when Gillian finally ended her call.

"Yes, sorry. Something urgent to deal with it," she replied, seemingly normal.

Tell me about it! Torres thought, eyeing the men at work just behind the boss.

"That's ok, I- We," she half turned around, pointing at the small group of employees gathered around. "We were wondering what is going on?"

"There's a situation downton, police stopped a pregnant woman for a routine traffic check yesterday and things got out of control," Foster explained with a sigh, looking down at her phone as she shook her head. "She claims she was manhandled, the police says she escalated the situation and apparently the officers involved reported issues with their body cams. So now we need to talk to both sides and figure out what actually went down." Only then, Gillian looked up from the phone and stared at her with some kind of pleading look. "I know you have your hands full, but I could really use your help on this one."

"Yeah, sure, no problem. But-" Someone behind her coughed audibly and she wanted to turn around and bark at them that they were free to take her place if they thought it was so easy. "Actually we would like to know what this," she waved her hands at the men working around them, the mess and tools spread all over the place, "is all about."

Gillian blinked a couple of times, then looked around as if she had just noticed the mess for the first time. Loker and Anna stepped closer, standing by Torres and waiting for the boss' response, holding their breath.

"Oh, nothing to worry about," Foster dismissed it so easily and naturally that they all thought they might have just imagined it. "We're just making some changes."

That was exactly what they were worried about, changes: how could the removal of the company name be a good one? Were they about to be shut down? Was Lightman leaving, and literally taking his name with him? Then Gillian smiled, an amused grin that seemed to think they were being silly for thinking anything of the sort, and they didn't know whether to feel offended or reassured.

Not that she looked like she was about to anyway, but before she could elaborate on her words and address their obvious fears Gillian's phone rang again. She was still talking, absently looking around as if to check the progress of the work, when Cal came in. He had a strange strut, a renewed energy in his step even though he had to test his reflexes and quickly dribble around a man carrying a big and heavy box.

"Bloody hell!" He gasped out loud. "You watch with that, right? Precious stuff in there."

Then he looked around too, hands in his pockets, nodding absently with clear satisfaction as he took in the scene. Loker and the others watched him approach the man who seemed to be in charge, chat briefly with him and check on something together. Then he pulled away, giving one last look and pleased grin to the missing letters on the wall, and walked towards them.

"It's coming off nicely," he mumbled to Gillian in a low voice, almost shy.

"Yes, it is." She smiled back and he gave her a small nod, and to the others' surprise it became clear that he had been anxiously waiting for her seal of approval.

"Sorry about the mess, love. Chief over there said the delivery is a little late, but they should be done by the end of the day," Cal explained then.

"It's ok, we have to go out anyway."

"Who died?" He quipped crassly, earning himself a well deserved eye-roll.

"Nobody, but it could get ugly. I'll fill you in on the way over." Gillian turned to Torres. "Drive with us Ria, I'll share all the details."

Knowing she couldn't say no, Torress babbled something in agreement and about needing to get her jacket. She left at a brisk pace to her office, leaving Loker and Anna watching the interaction between the two bosses from a safe distance. Compared to the last time they had seen them, it felt like being in some kind of alternate universe. First of all, they were talking, in that seemingly natural way that had been missing for at least the past week. Secondly, they were smiling: not like before, when they were together or even before they got together, but again not something they had seen in a while. Perhaps the rumours about the Mayor's party had been wrong, so wrong that what was going on was actually the opposite of what they had heard, and when Torres passed by Loker and Anna on the way to join the bosses they made sure she understood she was on a case far more important than the one Foster had illustrated.

When the trio came back around lunch time, the mysterious activity had stopped. Not finished, just stopped. Whatever delivery the crew had been waiting for clearly hadn't arrived, but at least they had cleaned and tidied up as much as possible.

After having removed the entirety of the sign.

Torres was baffled, even though she had understood that was what the workers were doing it was still quite the sight to come in and find it all gone. She remembered a few times Lightman joking - well, scolding her really - about whose name was on the door and if that was the Torres group already - but to see the letters gone from the wall made her feel extremely uncomfortable. What shocked her the most, was that her bosses seemed to be completely unfazed by the missing feature, and only mildly annoyed by the delay of the delivery. To be precise, Lightman seemed the more disappointed of the two, with Foster being the one who had to reassure him that it was no big deal and not to worry about it.

When they finally broke ranks Torres was more than happy to escape them, and she was welcomed equally eagerly by Loker in the lab.

"Finally!" He jumped to his feet when she came in. "How did it go?"

"Both the police and the woman seem to be lying about something. We are waiting for-"

"Not about that!" He grunted. "The sign, them- What the hell is going on?!"

"What?" Torres gave him a stern look as she took off her jacket, nearly laughing and his impatience. "You thought they were going to have some heart to heart with me in the car?"

"No, but I expect the natural to be able to pick on something."

Torres rolled her eyes, not liking when her so-called status seemed to backfire on her. Still…

"Well I can tell you this much. They're not back together and no, we are not shutting down."

"Then what is it?" Loker whined. "Is one of them leaving the company? Is that where all this friendliness comes from, they've decided to part ways for good?"

"No, they just…"

She sighed and shook her head, sitting down as she felt suddenly exhausted. And she was, in a mental kind of way. Aside from when they had been busy with the case, sharing time and spaces with Lightman and Foster had been challenging; she had seen and heard things trying to make something of it, but almost immediately she had wondered if what she was catching on was really there or if they might have just been messing with her. Yes, the thought that they might have been back together had crossed her mind, but after looking at them up close for a while she had come to the conclusion that that wasn't the case. She remembered how they had been when they were dating, always careful and respectful of those around them but still clearly letting their private intimacy show through little gestures and looks. Torres had seen nothing of the sort that day, nothing but two friends and business partners who were able to be on the same page despite some occasional personal issues.

"Whatever they fought about it's gone, that's all I know," she stated then. "Which, if you ask me, is something I'm happy enough about without investigating any further."

"But you think it has to do with whatever is going on in the lobby?" Loker enquired, and Torres shrugged.

"They said nothing about it, not in front of me at least. But the timing is certainly suspicious so yes, I do think it is connected but I have nothing to base it on other than my gut feeling."

Loker wasn't convinced, not because he didn't trust Torres but simply because, to him, it didn't make any sense. In all honesty, not much had since they had come clean about their relationship in the first place. After the rather public announcement he was expecting constant displays of affection and inopportune behaviour, but there had been none of that. When they had broken up, he had braced himself for endless and spiteful bickering and a continuous overlapping of professional and personal issues, but again the opposite had happened. And now that; a fight about work that seemed to have achieved what the romantic split hadn't, only to be seemingly erased in a weekend leaving behind a trail of questions.

"So what should we do?" He asked then with a moan, but Torres just shrugged.

"Nothing we can do. We're not shutting down and they seem to be on good terms again." She shrugged again. "As far as I am concerned, that's all I need to know."

She meant that, wholeheartedly. In her early days in the group she had been intrigued by many things about her employers, private stuff about themselves and the other they fiercely guarded and protected. But years had gone by, she had grown and, maybe, learned a lesson or two. Trying to figure out what was going with them was no longer that entertaining, not when it was clear that personal and delicate feelings were involved.

And she wasn't the only one.

As word got around that the business was not shutting down everybody started to worry less about the future and instead focus on the present.

Later in the afternoon, the much awaited delivery arrived. The foreman leading the crew apologised profusely for the delay and said they would come back to finish in the morning at no extra charge, but Cal was adamant that they finished the job. He was happy to pay extra out of his pocket if necessary, but he did have one condition.

Some staffers heard the first part of the conversation, by then most of the employees had shamelessly taken the habit to lurk around the lobby to keep an eye on what was happening and they all noticed how hell bent the male boss was on getting that done as per the original schedule. However the second part, what the condition was, got lost on them. Cal made sure that nobody would hear him, and if that wasn't strange enough shortly after that whispered exchange the crew spent some extra time building a temporary partition to prevent curious onlookers from seeing what they were putting up where the Lightman Group sign used to be.

After initially stretching their curiosity, that last act eventually clarified one thing to employees: they would have to wait. So they did, they finished their working day and left one after the other, thinking whatever was going up they would have seen it the morning when coming back to work.

Which had been precisely what Cal had wanted all along. He stayed after everyone else had gone home, waiting in his office for the work to be done, sipping a drink and relishing in anticipation for the big reveal. Not just with the staff for the day after but for himself too, and for someone else in particular.

Around 7pm, the foreman knocked on his door to let him know that they were done and ready to go. Clearly the man had expected Cal to want to go and check, but he simply thanked him for working late to finish and dismissed him. Once alone, Cal leaned back on his chair and sighed, pleased with himself as if he had been the one spending the day with power tools and paint. Then he refilled his glass and stood up, carrying it with him on his way to the lobby. The crew was gone along with all their stuff, and they had diligently cleaned up and tidied everything that they had touched throughout the day. They had done such a good job with that that the only sign of their presence left was a faint smell of paint in the air and, to his request, a white sheet draped over the wall.

Cal's hands were hitching to take it down and take a peak, but he knew he had to wait. A small smile came to his lips shortly after when he heard the familiar sound of heels on the floor, and even though he didn't move nor turned in the direction of the sound he knew exactly when to hold up the glass and hand it to Foster as she stepped next to him.

"Was all this secrecy really necessary?" She asked while taking the glass from his hand, but her smile betrayed her amusement.

"Nothing wrong with a little razzle dazzle," Cal smirked, then nodded over at the white drape. "Wanna do the honours?"

The answer to his question was easy - yes, absolutely - and yet it wasn't all that straightforward, not yet. Gillian did step away from him and towards the wall, her fingers gently brushing on the white drape, honestly feeling a little shiver running down her spine. It was the anticipation for the reveal, but also the feeling of his eyes on her, strangely knowing that that moment meant as much to him as it did her. She had thought about it a lot since the party, since the moment he had put those envelopes in her hands, and as much as both gestures had been as appreciated as they had been unexpected she still had questions going through her mind.

"Why?" She asked then, her hand lingering on the drape without touching it as she looked at him. "Why now? And don't say why not."

Cal chuckled at the last admonishment, then sighed. Gillian expected him to give her another one of those 'I'm ashamed of showing my nice side' shoulder shrug he had given her at the party, but instead Cal went one step further and looked down at his feet swing the floor absently, too embarrassed to even look at her.

"Should have done it long ago, Foster. We both know that."

"Is it because we broke up?"

Gillian pressed on with her question, ignoring his clear attempt to defuse the situation. She understood because of his nature he didn't want to make a big deal out of it, but it was a big deal and she really needed to know. She waited for him to get there, smiling to herself when Cal absently scratched and touched his beard in a gesture that had become, unknowingly to him, very natural and frequent since he had acquired the new facial feature.

"You know it's not," he managed to say, looking at her just long enough so that she could see the truth in his face. "And it's not a scheme to get back together either."

"I know," she replied quickly, and she really did.

Much like their recent fight, that gesture was not about them as a couple. It was more, it went beyond that and focused solely on their business relation, and she knew Cal would never use it as a tool to blur the confines of the two. But she needed answers, real explanations so that she could archive that in the appropriate place and move on.

"You still haven't answered my question," she gently insisted then, chuckling softly when he moaned something and rolled his eyes at her.

Then Cal leaned forward on the reception desk counter, hands in his pockets and just oddly balancing on his sternum. He was a picture of unease and nervousness, yet Gillian knew it didn't have anything to do with her per se but with the way he perceived many things about himself.

"This is your company as much as it is mine, and I know I'm terrible at keeping that in mind, mine or others. This thing with Artosi…not only you put together that amazing training programme for them, but without you here they would have never found someone who understood what they wanted to do, let alone share their ideas and be able to deliver." He stopped and turned around, giving her his back. "The other night at the party…those people want to see me like they want to see wild animals in captivity, with morbid curiosity and in a safe environment. You're the…tamer that makes it all possible." Cal was silent for a while, perhaps waiting for her to say something and relieve him from the emotional weight of his confession. But she didn't say anything, likely understanding there was more and leaving him time to get there, and eventually Cal turned around again and looked at her. "I don't want to be another man whose name you're stuck with."

Her eyes, her face…her entire being opened up in such a deep and explosive grateful expression that Cal wished he had a camera to catch it, and words suitable enough to describe it. Gillian smiled, fighting back tears of joy and trying to keep her breathing steady. She thought she had already been through the positive emotions when she had read the paper, when she had understood what it all meant for her, for them…but that explanation, that last sentence, that was worth all the self-doubts and frustrations and jokes and clarifications she'd had to endure throughout the years.

The only downside to that moment was that it could have been better, more meaningful and powerful if things between them had been different. The issue wasn't just that they had broken up, the problem was that they had gotten together in the first place and Gillian couldn't help but think that their past relationship was taking away some of the shine from that landmark moment. But she pushed that thought aside, something she had become increasingly good at, then just smiled and nodded at Cal before pulling down the drape.

The piece of fabric came down with a gentle rustling sound, the loose hems twirling in the air and falling to the ground. She didn't bother with that and neither did Cal, their eyes instead glued to the wall where the brand new LIGHTMAN & FOSTER sign shone with the blunt visual confidence of a declaration of intent. They had seen renderings and mockups of it, way too many in the short period of time of the weekend to be able to fully grasp what it would have been like once finished, but it was a whole other thing to see it finished, up on the wall where they both felt it belonged.

Gillian stepped back to take in the view from a better perspective, feeling so many ways about it that she couldn't pick one to name or surrender to. After a while, she glanced over at Cal who, much like her, seemed enthralled by the new feature and by the meaning of it. Then she lifted the glass he had given her earlier in a toast getsure and drank some of it, passing it to him so that he could do the same. Cal obliged and finished the liquor, then put the glass on the counter and leaned on it admiring the finished work.

"You better go now Cal," Gillian said then after a while, smiling knowingly when he looked at her a bit puzzled. "You're gonna be late for your date."

Cal bit at his bottom lip, his surprise lasting just about the time it took him to realise that he should probably have a conversation with his lovely daughter about minding her own business. But then he checked his watch and groaned softly, knowing that regardless of how she knew about it Gillian was right.

"'Night love," he whispered then, giving one last look at the sign on the wall and a last nod at her. "Sorry it took me so long."

And with that he left, feeling that no matter how things would work out between them from then on he had least been able to remove a big item from his long list of regrets.