Sleep hadn’t come easy to Riley the last couple of nights. Usually she was so exhausted after a mission that it almost killed just to keep her eyes open. And she was exhausted. That wasn’t the problem. The emotional toll, jet lag, and physical demand lugging a bomb through the rubble and remains of that building in Germany made her almost question getting up the next morning. It was rare to have a day at The Phoenix that wasn’t filled to the brim with work, but after one mission ended, there was a small window of calm before another storm. Still, she couldn’t miss work. And if she was being honest with herself, she didn’t want to. Not because she loved her job– though there was no question that she did. But seeing her friends now after so many months apart was a relief. To know that they were still a family; even if there were some bridges that needed a little mending.
There was more to Riley’s hesitance though than just being drained, and a pang of guilt crept over her when she told Aubrey goodbye that morning. The fresh to-go cup of coffee in her hand, which Riley’s fingers were currently tapping against, had been freshly ground by him. Not only was her entire career a lie, but she was beginning to worry more about the relationship. Partly because it inevitably wouldn’t work - not if she stayed with The Phoenix. There was no denying that she cared about Aubrey, a lot. And she had been happy with him when there was no one else. But now, there was. A very important someone she had missed over those eighteen months. The one she literally leaped over a counter to work with again. The one that maybe she’d had feelings bubbling up for for a long time, and they had finally come to the surface. Riley’s fingers tightened around the cup in reflex as she remembered the way his hand felt holding hers. He had opened up to her, and saved her life. But that touch? It drew her out of denial.
Relationships in this business though– they didn’t work. Riley was terrified of losing Mac; she didn’t want things to turn out between them like it did him and Desi. So she’d have to bury everything way down deep. Which wasn’t easy when he was the next to arrive in the quiet war room, glittering blue eyes dancing across to meet her hazel. Those vivid hues that made her feel safe and vulnerable all the same. “Morning, Mac,” Riley greeted, her voice husked with weariness. Still, she offered a lazy smile as she pulled open her laptop. She had to play it cool. Normal. Then everything would be alright. Or so that’s what Riley told herself. “Find a little downtime this weekend?”
“Hey Riles, good morning.” When Mac entered the war room, he wasn’t at all surprised to find Riley as the first member of the team there waiting for the briefing. After all, he’d barely had time to get the words out before she’d leapt over the counter to rejoin the Phoenix in her eagerness. And the truth really was, without her as a part of the team there’d have been a huge gap to be filled. It’s why he’d gone to her first; before Bozer, before Desi, Riley brought a lot to the group and it went beyond her immeasurable hacking skills. Returning the smile that came with her greeting, “A little bit, nothing as special as disarming artillery from World War Two though.” Offering Riley a quick wink as he crossed the room and took a seat in the chair next to hers, then reached out to pick up a paper clip out of the bowl set on the small table between them.
“How about you? Get to enjoy some quiet time decompressing?” He’d picked up right away on the fatigue in her voice, as well as the coffee cup in Riley’s hand. It was understandable given the high stakes they had faced in Germany just a few days earlier; life and death circumstances were a lot more usual in their line of work but it took just as heavy a toll on the psyche even when it was becoming more of a status quo. “How’s Aubrey?” Mac posed the question about Riley’s secret boyfriend, only doing so while they were alone. Just because she’d revealed the truth to him it didn’t mean she’d told anybody else about him. And he still felt a little guilty for reacting so poorly at first upon learning that she had been keeping the secret of a live-in boyfriend for half a year, so Mac wanted to make sure they were still cool about things.
Besides, this latest mission could have gone sideways in so many different ways and he was grateful that they’d all made it out alive and in one piece. Before any of the others could show up, Mac turned towards Riley who was already working away on her trusty laptop and caught her gaze. “If nothing else, I guess a couple of close calls like Germany really makes you appreciate what you have, right?” After most of the Phoenix’s missions there was a flood of relief that carried him for the next few days but something about this one, something was different for him. He’d spent a quiet weekend just working around the house, tinkering with a few projects that could charitably be called in-progress, but in the really quiet moments Mac kept going back to the moments right after the two of them had just narrowly avoided disaster when the bomb had started to careen down the stairs and he’d managed to pull Riley out of harm’s way. How they’d just clung to one another and then slowly realized their lives hadn’t ended, and the bomb hadn’t gone off. That latest flood of relief hadn’t seem to go away, at least not while he was in Riley’s presence.
