James kicked the others out at eleven, when their shift was actually over. He felt bad waking Madelyn up, but if she’d rather go home to her own bed, then it wouldn’t be right of him to keep her here until she woke up on her own at four AM or whatever. Bradley offered to stay, but James refused. Amelia was due in at five, so he would only be here alone for six hours.

James slept for about four of them. He was so far beyond caring what the Foundation wanted from them, about all these papers and notes and forms that had to be just right or they’d send them back with angry, condescending little notes on them. Not when they’d dropped an unfinished case before the investigator’s body had been identified by her family. 

He knew it wasn’t the current higher ups at the Foundation that had done it. But the culture was the same, and he wasn’t going to let his people get eaten by it. He’d told Gabs and Graham that. He’d remembered that conversation from a few months back as he locked the door behind the others. It had been the anniversary of Robin’s death, the team had been drowning in work, and the Foundation was doing a lot of it on purpose. So he still believed what’d said then. They’d take everything his team had to give, given the choice. And in LeRoux’s case, they had taken everything.

Not that he knew for sure that LeRoux had been on the clock when she died. Maybe she’d been out with friends or family. But her last report was dated the day she died, and something in both his own heart and the way Bradley had looked at him after Gabriella read the obituary made him think she was working when she was killed. If Gabs wanted to pull further information on her, James was sure that they could get anything official the Foundation had about an accident involving staff. But it didn’t matter. She died, and they dropped her.

He woke up with about two hours left of work, feeling almost refreshed. So instead of rolling over on his office couch and going back to sleep, James got up and drained his water bottle before walking out to the living room area. The TV was off, the ancient clicker sitting beside it. That wouldn’t last, that thing would be gone again by the time the morning shift started. He straightened up the room absently, tossing pillows back on the couch and picking up his own sweatshirt from where he’d left it on the chair.

He had no regrets about last night. All the Foundation wanted from them was paperwork and records, all those things they wanted during the day when they were also actually working cases. Not that they didn’t at night. James had worked plenty of cases at night. Maybe more than the day shift. Actually, that’d be interesting to add up.

He’d planned to prepare for two more cases today, then drag another random one out of the boxes Meredith had brought over. And most likely would continue to bring.  She was cute. James wouldn’t mind getting to know her better, but he truly just did not have the time or the bandwidth for that. So whatever little flirtation they had going was likely going to only last as long as the Foundation was sending over boxes of shit for him to dig through.

But maybe it didn’t have to be that way. He could ask her out for a coffee. If she worked for the Foundation, she’d get why he couldn’t go on regular dates. They’d get a coffee and talk for a little while. Maybe she wouldn’t even mind that he was constantly working. Some people liked that kind of independence in relationships.

It was more feasible than he’d thought before last night, now that he was actually considering the possibility. Maybe he’d talk to Amelia about it over breakfast later. 

James looked through the fridge, searching through the limited options to see if there was to make breakfast for her. He’d bought dinner for the three who were here last night. Graham was off today, but James could buy him some of the good beer and leave it in the fridge. And maybe he’d bring Amelia to Denny’s or something.

No, he could do something with this. There were some eggs from Graham’s sister’s farm. He’d brought them in, saying she was making him take obscene amounts of eggs home and would someone please use them? James had left some bread in here too, also from Angelica’s farm. He could toast that up easily enough. And maybe he could run out and get some meat of some kind. Would the world burn down if he left this house for twenty minutes to get chicken sausage?

Unlikely, but it didn’t matter anyway because there was a package of chicken sausage left in the freezer.

He had about an hour and a half until Amelia got here, so it was too early to make anything. Maybe he’d break his rule a little and check his email. But when James went to open the email app on his phone, he decided, fuck it, and started checking baseball scores instead.

Between that, the book Amelia had left here a few nights ago, and starting breakfast, the rest of his shift passed peacefully. By the time Amelia walked in the door at five o’clock, breakfast was just about ready.

“You should have told me you were cooking,” Amelia said as she stood in the kitchen doorway. “I would have gotten some pastries. That one place is open at four.”

“I’ll remember that later,” James said. “Hang on, I’m almost done.”

Amelia was quiet as James plated their food. She put coffee on, making a note on the fridge notepad to buy more coffee grounds. “So what’s this about?” Amelia finally asked as the coffee maker hissed to life behind her.

“Just felt like making breakfast.”

“And buying Madelyn dinner and refusing to let anyone do any work last night.”

James looked at her. “You should have been asleep before she got home,” he said. 

“Yes, Dad,” Amelia said with a laugh as she took a bite of egg. “This is great. Thank you. So tell me what’s going on.”

As James told her everything, he realized how insane it sounded. He’d taken everybody off of work last night, but kept them on so that they’d still be paid. So they all spent the evening watching random nature shows in the living room together. He was either the world’s worst or world’s greatest captain.

He broke his rule just slightly, with an hour to go, since he spent the last fifteen minutes of his shift touching base with Amelia about the different cases currently going and what was on the docket for the rest of the day. He was only off until five tonight, so he’d be involved in a lot of them later. But that was enough time to get some things done away from here and as soon as they were done eating, Amelia kicked him out.

When he got home, Graham was already up and moving. “Morning!” James called as he came in.

Graham was half-dressed, wearing an unbuttoned blue dress shirt over a white t-shirt as he stood at the kitchen table and ate breakfast, reading something on his phone. He looked over as James came in, then set the phone down and walked out to the front door.

“Everything okay?”

Jesus, why did they keep asking? He actually felt pretty good. “Yeah, fine,” he said. “We took last night off for the most part.”

“Yeah, Madelyn and Gabriella both told me.”

Was it  really that weird? James shrugged. “It wasn’t a huge thing,” he said. “The Foundation’s been being unreasonable lately. And Gabs told me about the 1920s case being dropped after the investigator died and I just kind of said fuck it, you know?”

“Yeah, I get it.”

“I owe you dinner, by the way,” James said. “You’re the only one I didn’t work with at any point this morning or yesterday evening.”

“I’m looking forward to it,” Graham said. “I want white tablecloths and candlelight.”

“Yeah, and I want a lot of things.”

“Saving those romantic dinners for the delivery lady?”

“Oh fuck off,” James muttered as Graham started buttoning his shirt.

“You should ask her out,” Graham said. “Might be a nice change of pace to actually go on a date for once.”

James shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. “I’ve got so much going on.”

“You always will.”

James almost felt offended for a split second, but Graham wasn’t wrong. And it clearly wasn’t meant to be insulting. “You’re a good guy,” Graham continued. “I just want you to be happy.”

“I am happy.”

He wasn’t lying, he really did like his life mostly, even if it wasn’t what he had planned it to be.

“I’m at Cleary House until eleven,” Graham said. “Just to help set up a fundraiser this evening. I’ll be at work by two.”

“What are you working on?” James asked, walking into the kitchen as Graham followed.

“I’m actually digging into the next case on the list from the box. We figured it’d be good to have an idea of what’s coming. It’s from 1947, some kind of mind control thing.”

James shuddered. “That’s all yours,” he said. “Vampires?”

“No. Oh my God, you said that so casually. Not vampires. No, this was a wealthy family patriarch whose family was sure he was being controlled.”

James would have preferred the vampires, though both options made his stomach turn. “Let me know what you find,” he said.

“Amelia said she’ll take the lead on that one while you finish Blueberry Hill.”

God, he loved Amelia. “Great. Yeah, that works great.”

Graham took his breakfast dishes over to the sink. “See you tonight,” he said. “Call that girl.”

“I don’t have her number.”

“Then figure out how to get it.”

***

It turned out that James didn’t have to figure anything out after all. The doorbell rang about thirty minutes after he got to work that evening. And sure enough, Meredith was standing there, wearing her cute visor and denim shorts that had James trying to look anywhere but at her very nice legs. He was so flustered and happy to see her that he almost didn’t notice the size of the box sitting by her feet.

“Sorry,” she said. “I just had to put it down, it was so much worse than the last few.”

“Next time, come to the door first and I’ll help you out,” James said, aware that at least Madelyn was up in the living room, likely Graham too. “If there is a next time, I mean.”

“I-”

She stopped and James had to hope deep down that she’d been about to say she hoped so. He did too, though not for the boxes. He’d gladly burn all of them without a second thought. But she was smiling at him and didn’t seem to be in a huge hurry to leave as she passed him the clipboard to sign. He signed it, then took a breath and pulled all his nerve together.

“Um, hang on,” he said, handing the clipboard back to her.

He reached into his pockets, which were obviously empty. He’d given Daphne his last business card and there wasn’t even a…no, there was a receipt from Market Basket. But no pen.

“Can I borrow that again?”

Meredith was smiling, watching him expectantly. She wasn’t running screaming, that was a good sign. She went to hand him the pen, but it was tied to the clipboard. So she handed him the whole thing, and he quickly wrote his name and phone number on the receipt, then clipped it on top of the paper before handing the whole thing back to her.

“No pressure,” he said. “I mean… just text me if you want to.”

“Alright,” she said, slightly pink now.

Again, not screaming and running away. Good sign. He smiled at her for a second, then remembered the box full of extra work sitting between them. “Oh, um, I won’t keep you,” he said. “But…yeah. If you want.”

“I will.”

He watched her walk down the stairs toward her van, which was parked in front of their hideous mustard monstrosity. She waved, and he remembered how his hand worked. As her van was driving away, he lifted the box, straining something in the small of his back as he did so. 

He clumsily slammed the door open, then staggered in under the weight of the worst box yet. “Can someone give me a hand?” he asked, finally surrendering.

Madelyn looked around the corner and for a horrified second, James thought she was the only one there. But then Graham was on his way over and, between the two of them, they got it up the stairs. “In my office,” James said.

This one went on the ground, since the others were back in the chairs and he still wasn’t giving up his couch. “This is ridiculous,” James said, opening the top to see a messy pile of folders and binders inside. “I hope this one melts too.”

“Did you get her number?” Graham asked, inspecting a mug on James’s desk.

“Gave her mine.”

Graham looked at him approvingly, then nodded and walked out of the office, clearly going to update Madelyn on the situation. James sat down at his desk and set his phone to the side, resisting the urge to check it already.

---

CONTINUE TO CHAPTER 18