Jack and D got the unenviable task of going to Metro and, with disposable scrubs over their suits and filtered masks over their faces, interviewing the poor janitor who, as they had learned, cleaned industrial complexes. When he revealed which building he suspected he'd gotten the contaminant from, and that the previous tenants seemed to have moved out in a real hurry, the two agents looked at one another with worry in their eyes.
All in all, it had been a very long Thursday. Most of the team had already cleared out to go get what little rest they could before returning bright and early the next morning. Tara was busy finishing something up at her desk, and Bobby was still at his, though if anybody had been paying attention they might not be able to pinpoint what exact purpose he had for still being there.
And though she was doing a decent job of looking like she wasn't, Tara Williams was, in fact, paying attention.
After nearly half an hour of, between running searches or printing findings, surreptitiously watching Bobby shuffle and reshuffle papers around his desk, organize and reorganize pens, and fiddle with every desk toy he owned, she finally decided to speak up. "Yo, Manning," she called.
He looked up expectantly, almost like he'd been waiting for her to speak. "Yeah, luv?"
"What're you still doing here?"
"Oh, uh," he touched a couple things on his desk, straightening the already-straight items as he spoke, "just, you know, cleaning the desk a little, making sure it'll be, uh, ready for, for tomorrow, and, uh, everything will be efficient."
"Bobby," she said sternly. "That desk is the cleanest it's been since the day you were assigned to it. And yet you're still fiddling at it. What are you still doing here?"
He took a deep breath, then got up and walked over to her desk. "Okay," he said as he walked. "Okay, um . . . look, you ever, uh . . . you ever think about . . . what if we fail?" He perched on the edge of her desk as he spoke. She looked up and saw the worry in his eyes.
"Y-yeah," she said. "All the time."
"Yeah, me too. Yeah, but, uh . . . this one, uh, it feels a little . . . more. You know?"
She nodded. "Yeah. I think so too."
"And it's got me thinking," he said, "um . . . if . . . if we were to fail . . . if we can't find them and they hit their target—"
"We can't let that happen, Bobby."
"No, I know, as far as I'm concerned we'll do everything not to let that happen, but I just mean, uh, if, if we failed . . . I mean it would set off a wave of an epidemic that would most likely become a pandemic if we couldn't keep it contained, but even if we did keep it contained there's no knowing if anyone within the affected area, other than the select evacuated to the President's bunker, would survive when all was said and done."
"I know."
"Yeah. And, um . . . if that were to happen . . . I don't want any regrets. You know? So just in case—and I'm not changing what I said before, I meant it, I won't make you choose or act like you don't know how to choose for yourself or anything like that—" At some point, he had reached his hand toward hers, not quite holding her hand, but lightly brushing their fingers together, and she was gazing at him with a look of nervous anticipation, suspecting she knew where he was going with this—"but I just want to make sure that I have actually said, um—"
"Surprise!" came a voice from the doorway. They both leapt up and turned toward the newcomer, each looking almost guilty despite not having technically been doing anything wrong.
"Stanley!" Tara exclaimed. "Hi!"
Bobby recovered his poker face first—no surprise, since he was literally a master poker player—and happily greeted him with, "Hey, Stan the man!
"My, uh, plane got in early," Stanley said, awkward as ever, "so I thought—" He interrupted himself to give Tara, who he'd been walking toward, a quick kiss hello, then just trailed off with an, "uhhhhh," nodding at her and smiling awkwardly.
When the pause went on a little too long, Bobby jumped in with, "Well, welcome back! Uh, how was the Big Apple?"
"Oh, more big than, uh, apple, I suppose, but very productive," Stanley joked. Tara wondered why the dry wit, the wit that other people often missed entirely but that she'd always loved about him, seemed to fall flat now. Was it him? Or her?
"That's great, that's great," Bobby said, "and it's great that you're back!"
"It's great!" Tara agreed, smiling a little too big and inwardly cringing at her repeated use of the same words Bobby had just said.
If Stanley noticed how uncomfortable the two were, he didn't mention it, and given that he was always awkward and uncomfortable, there was no telling if he was less comfortable than usual or not. "So," he said, finally recovering what he'd meant to say before he interrupted himself by kissing her hello, "I thought if you were, uh, about wrapped up here, that maybe I could, uh, take you out to dinner."
Tara blinked rapidly. "Oh! Uh, s-sure! Yeah! Um, it'll have to be a quick one, though, and then I'll have to make it a short evening because we've got a huge case going on and I'll have to be back in as early as I can tomorrow."
"Oh, okay, yeah. Yeah, that's fine. Good. Um, I was thinking of Pancho and Cheng's. It's Chinese-Mexican cuisine."
"Sounds . . . international," Tara said, for lack of any other description coming to mind.
They both chuckled slightly, but she couldn't help glancing back to Bobby, who was smiling in a way that might have made someone else believe he was happy to see Tara and Stanley together, but Tara could see through that. At least, she hoped she was reading him right, though she didn't really want to analyze why she was hoping that she was correctly reading that Bobby didn't like seeing Tara and Stanley together. Stanley, apparently, could not read this in Bobby at all, as he offered, "You, uh, wanna join us?"
"No, thanks," he said just a touch too quickly. "No, uh, I'm, uh, more of an Australian, uh, southern hemisphere cuisine fan." Well, now Tara knew for certain that she was reading Bobby's face correctly, because that was an outright lie. Sure, he liked his Aussie cuisine, but other than a few childhood favorite comfort foods, his favorite cuisines outside of pizza and burgers were Chinese and Mexican.
"Oh," Stanley said, nodding. "I'd like to try that sometime." He just stood there nodding for a moment, while Tara barely refrained from rolling her eyes. Someone had pointed out to Stanley that he ate really boring, bland food most of the time, so he had gone on a kick of trying different foods constantly and insisting that the more unusual the cuisine compared to what he'd grown up with, the better he liked it. Tara was all for adventure, but man, have an opinion of your own!
After apparently deciding he had nodded awkwardly for long enough, Stanley said, "So, you're—are you ready?
"Oh!" Tara responded, shaking herself from her thoughts. "Um . . . ." She held up her index finger to indicate she needed a moment, then turned and shut her computer down and grabbed her coat and purse, while Bobby gave a subtle wave goodbye to Stanley and started to turn back toward his own desk. "Ready to go!" Tara said before Bobby had finished turning away.
As she and Stanley headed out the door, she looked back to Bobby, who apparently had rejected the notion of turning away and instead was staring after her. She gave him a little wave and mouthed, "Later."
But the broken-hearted expression on his face when she walked out the door continued to haunt her throughout the evening.
It was official: Tara liked Chinese food. She liked Mexican food. They did not belong together, or at least not the way this particular restaurant combined them. Chow mein did not belong in a taco. General Tso's chicken was great on its own, as were burritos, but mixing those spices turned it into . . . neither.
Still, she muscled through, glad they'd gotten a "poo-poo plato" to share so that she could eat just a little bit and insist she wasn't very hungry. As soon as she could get home, a big plate of leftover macaroni and cheese was calling her name!
Their conversation was stilted, which she tried to excuse to Stanley as her just being tired. When their "fortune churros" arrived, and she barely glanced at it, Stanley finally asked, "Okay, what is wrong?"
"Hmm? Oh, I'm sorry. I guess I'm just really tired," she excused for the umpteenth time. "It's been a very long day and we're facing another very long day tomorrow with this case. It's . . . I know you have the security clearance for it, but it's not something I want to talk about in a place where people might overhear. Suffice it to say, we have to solve it tomorrow or the damage and repercussions will be huge."
"Yeah, I, uh, I-I actually, uh, heard something about it," he said. "J-just a little, uh, b-but I know, uh, e-enough to know that it must be, uh, frightening and frustrating. You know, at the same time."
"Yeah. It really is."
"But, um . . . I can't, uh, c-can't help b-but wonder," he continued, and she noted his increased stutter that indicated his nerves, "i-if your, uh, q-quiet, uh, mood, uh, i-if it m-might be b-because y-you're having, uh . . . uh, having this food, uh, w-with me, um, i-instead of, uh . . . instead of, of Australian . . . cuisine."
She had been looking at her little dessert plate with the weird dessert combo she couldn't quite figure out, but at his words her head jerked up and her eyes snapped to his in alarm. "What?"
"Uh . . . I mean, w-when I came in, uh . . . I, uh, that is, y-you and Bobby, uh, y-you were looking p-pretty cozy." Oh. Apparently Stanley hadn't been as unaware back at the office as she'd thought. "A-and, um, I-I heard, uh, heard what h-he was s-saying. Um, m-maybe I sh-should have just, uh, left then, but, um, I-I've told you before, uh, I-I'm willing to fight, uh, fight for you."
Tara felt like she was getting internal whiplash from all the emotions flashing through her at once. It was entirely possible she'd just experienced all 5 stages of grief in a single go, because while she was nearly ready to lash out in anger, by the time she was able to formulate a sentence she was already accepting what she realized she had known for a while but hadn't wanted to admit—their inevitable pending breakup.
"Stanley," she said softly, "Bobby . . . admitted he has feelings for me, but he also told me he wouldn't fight for me."
"Th-then I guess I, uh, have the upper hand i-in the fight, huh?"
"No. Stanley . . . no, because I don't want you to fight for me."
He deflated with a whispered, "What?"
"I . . . Stanley, how well do you know me?"
"What are you talking about? I'm your boyfriend, I know you better than anyone!"
"Do you know my favorite band?"
"You like . . . um, that weird one, for some reason, the Scottish rock band. But you're sweet so you let me listen to my classical music when I'm around."
"Mojo Gogo, Stanley. And they're Irish. What's my favorite food?"
"You like trying new stuff with me."
"No. I really don't. I don't mind trying stuff sometimes, but especially when it's been a stressful time like today, I don't . . . I don't want something new or different, I want comfort food. And quiet." At his crestfallen expression, she said, "But I did like trying new stuff with you for a while, that's the thing! It's not that you never knew me, it's that you don't really know who I am now. And I don't really know you either. You're away so much, we just don't even have time to really know each other anymore, so we fill in with assumptions of how we think each other will change based on how we've each changed, but . . . we're not changing the same, Stanley. And . . . I don't want you to fight for me. At one time I did, because I thought that was sweet and romantic. But part of my changing has been realizing . . . I'm strong and capable on my own. And I can decide who to be with or who not to be with on my own, without any guys having to fight over me like I'm an object."
His eyes widened. "Tara—I, I never thought of you as—"
"I know you didn't. But I'm not sure I didn't. I know better now, and . . . I know that somewhere out there is the right woman for you Stanley, I just . . . don't believe I'm her."
It was a bittersweet parting from the restaurant as they lightly embraced and gave each other a parting kiss on the cheek. Tara's drive home might have gotten a little misty, but somehow, her heart felt lighter than it had in a long time.