Stoking The Fire

Chapter Twenty One

A knock sounds on the office door, breaking me out of my paperwork stupor. "Hey, Stokes."

I look up and narrow my eyes at Richards. "You just missed him, he headed out to that scene about ten minutes ago." I say, then look back down over the expense report I've been poring over. Politicians might be the weeds of the galaxy, but bureaucrats were the german cockroaches.

"Actually, I meant you. And you know it." I can hear the smirk in his voice, and I don't look up. "That's not funny, Richards." I hiss.

"No, it's pretty funny." He quips, as he steps into the room and pushes the door mostly closed.

"Yes?" I ask, clearly agitated.

"Don't give me that Kari. You know the bossman asked to keep an eye on you and make sure you don't overdo yourself while you're on desk duty."

"Well I didn't but I do now, thank you." I snap, then get up and limp over the shelves to pull out a couple of binders that have the codes I need to make parts of that stupid report make sense. I can see Richards standing there with his arms folded, and I set the binders down on the desk with a sigh, before perching on the edge of the desk and staring at him blankly.

"You really are angry at me, aren't you?" he asks, with an unbelieving laugh. I look out the windows behind him at all the people outside the door going about their day to day, then look at him pointedly.

"You do realize that the way you two feel about each other is like, literally the worst kept secret in the lab, right? Even way back before the shit with Jack?" My face goes from angry glare to unpleasantly neutral, then blank, then down at the floor.

"Kari?" he starts towards me, and I shake my head.

"Richards, despite whatever friendship we have, and believe me, I do appreciate the friendship we have, you can't go around making jokes like that. One petty asshole is all it takes to cost Nick his job, and you know it. You also know the board is just full of petty assholes."

"So, you're telling me that you DIDN'T get married in Vegas?" I narrow my eyes at him. "See, you're not denying it. I think it's the sweetest thing ever, and you know I'm rooting for the two of you, remember? Kari, the board made you independent. They can't touch you."

"You know, everyone keeps fucking saying that, and it's just, AH!" I close my eyes and shake my head, as the door opens and shuts.

"He's right, you know. About all of it."

"Oh god, not you too Moe. I didn't think you of all people would gang up on me." I say, as I look up at my old supervisor. "Is it really true?"

He shrugs. "Kari, we work in building chock fucking full of trained observers. What the fuck do you think?"

I groan, and slide my hands over my face. "Great, and I'm stumping around here like I fucking own the place, meanwhile everyone thinks that I'm only here because I've been boinking the boss and probably resenting me behind my back. That's just the look I so wanted to pull off this season."

"No, they see what you've done for the lab. They've heard the arguments, believe me. They see that you work just as hard as they do, and they don't think you're getting any special favors. Okay well, at least, no one's mentioned that they think you've been getting any special favors, at work anyway." his mouth quirks.

"Just how long have you been listening?" I ask irascibly, cheeks burning.

"Oh I was right behind him, I needed to bring you these." he says, as he places a pile of folders on my, no, Nick's desk. Our desk? The desk. I sit there rubbing my temples, as the two of them look at each other, look at the desk, look at me, and then look at each other again. They repeat this a few times before I finally look up at them.