2.45 All is Well

Another afternoon of work. Tula has been quickly moving up the ranks, finally landing that full time job she wanted so much, along with the drab uniform. Work could not possibly be going any better.  

"Morning, sleepy head," Rafael greets her. 

She keeps her eyes closed. Truth be told, even though her, ahem, side activities haven't properly started yet, her day job is keeping her busy. Piles of paper work to go through every night, hundreds of emails during the day, dozens of phone calls and dinners and lunches and meetings and briefs and thinking. It's the perfect job for her, but she can't deny the months of high energy output are starting to get to her. Just a little bit. 

Added on to the spontaneous and always nightly meetings with Morrigan on recruiting strategy...well, no wonder she's tired.

"Morning," she mumbles back, wanting to rub her eyes but remembering that her eye shadow cannot be smudged. 

By the time their elevator reaches the bottom floor, Tula manages to look more awake. 

"Hope that power nap was energizing enough," Rafael says to her with a smile. 

She doesn't look back, adopting a cool, regal expression, "In politics we don't nap, we close our eyes to strategize." 

"You ever consider business? You sound exactly like every manager I've ever had," Rafael laughs. 

Tula turns and smiles at him, "Mergers? Meetings? CEOs? Just sounds like a smaller scale version of what I do now." 

"Uh huh, sure. Anyways, gotta run. Have a nice day!" Rafael says quickly, dashing to his car pool. Moments later, Tula does the same. 

Another busy day lies ahead of her. 

***

After her shift, Tula is interrupted by the shrill ringing of her phone. She wonders if one of their "important connections" wants to reschedule their next meeting or dinner or whatever with her or her boss. 

"This is Tula Winterly speaking, how may I help you?" she answers. 

"Hey Tula, long time no see," a deep voice says on the other end, "Too busy rigging elections to talk to me anymore?" 

Tula recognizes the voice instantly, "William? Hey, you're right, it has been a long time. What's up?" 

"I just got a promotion and want to celebrate. Want to go to the Brightmore with me in about an hour?" 

"Hmmm, let me check my schedule," she pretends to go through her phone's calendar for a while, "I should be free. In an hour, right? I'll see you there." 

It was a mad dash home for her nicer clothes and some overnight things, but Tula makes it only minutes late. 

William doesn't seem to mind. 

"I normally don't do...fancy, but I figured with all the money I can rake in now, might as well, right?" William jokes nervously. Was that a dumb thing to say? He glances at Tula, her expression unreadable. 

That was probably a dumb thing to say, he chastises himself. 

Tula notices that he's being pulled into his own thoughts. She smiles flirtatiously at him, stroking his shoulder. 

"There are a lot of ways to celebrate..." 

Somehow, they manage to pull their clothes the right way around by the time they reach the next floor. 

William struts happily into the dizzyingly green bar. He just can't believe his turn of luck; a bonus payment, promotion, and even a commendation? 

"What was this promotion even for?" Tula asks as they walk towards the bar.

He feels on top of the world tonight and happily divulges, "Nothing huge. Just helped clean up some spill over from Bridgeport into some small town super far away. You ever heard of Appaloosa Plains?" 

Tula shakes her head, "Apple Loose?" 

William laughs, "Something like that. Crime here is going down. I guess because it's all spilling over elsewhere. Terrorizing people here just got boring, I guess. We're all too used to it. It's awful what this city can do to people..." he trails off and scratches the back of his neck. 

Tula is about to ask another question when suddenly, William bolts. 

"All these people...I can't," he calls out, practically sprinting out the door. There's only so many people at once that he can stand. 

"Wait for me!" Tula calls out from the bar. She manages to speed-walk her way to the elevator, careful not to trip in her heels. 

She's very understanding of his social anxiety. 

"There's a lot more we can do here anyways," she says in a husky voice. She nips his ear teasingly. She'll have to wait to press about whatever he did in her hometown. 

***

All is well in the world. 

Tula wakes up groggily well into the afternoon. Good thing it's Saturday. 

"William?" she calls out. 

"In here," comes his reply from behind the bathroom door. "Getting all wet and warm for you..." 

Tula giggles, choosing not to answer. She glances at the bedside table on William's side and sees his phone laying on it. 

Her curiosity gets the better of her and she quickly swipes it. 

"Ugh, so many missed calls from the office," she groans to the door. 

"I'm sure they can survive without you for one day," William replies, the end of his sentence cut off by a yawn. 

Tula takes as many photos with her own phone as she can. Can't have William tracing sent messages from his own phone now can she?

"You'd think so, but you'd swear the office would fall a part without me there from their messages," Tula sighs. She types numbers and names into her own contact list. She finally goes to her bag and pulls out one of the other things she brought with her here; a GPS tracker, a gracious gift from the Organization from her last meeting. It's much easier to gather data on recruits when you can know where they are. She slips the device into the SIM card slot and closes it. 

Knowing where Bridgeport's finest are will surely give her peace of mind. 

William gets out of the bathroom and lets Tula have her turn. When she gets out, however, she finds a text on her phone saying he's gone upstairs to work out. She makes herself a very late lunch and mulls over what to do next. 

Tula takes a good look around the house while William is pumping iron. She can assume that Romeo isn't home, or at least not in his room, if William is using it to exercise. 

Romeo is also several positions above William in the police force. Maybe she made a mistake in bugging William's phone instead of Romeo's. William's phone is now with him upstairs, so she can't do anything about that, but maybe Romeo brings home case files... 

She glances outside and sees Romeo fast asleep on a lounge chair. 

His phone is nowhere in sight. 

Acting quickly, she searches for his device. It's sitting innocuously on the kitchen counter. 

Like William's phone, there is a PIN. 

Also like William's phone, the code is broken easily enough. You wouldn't think the "finger print smudges" over four spots on the phone's screen would work in this day and age, but it seems people don't change too much. 

There's not much on Romeo's cell phone- chat logs on some dating apps, very normal photos of beaches and clubs on his camera roll, some co-workers' phone numbers. 

And then there's the emails. A small string of them. The Hemlock case. 

Morrigan's last name is Hemlock. 

As Tula reads on, she realizes she and her boss will need to move quickly. 

And so, in the dead of night, Tula makes her way home. Once safely in the apartment, she makes a phone call. 

"Morrigan? BPD knows where we work. We need to move, and we need to move now."

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AN: 

Boooo, ironic title. Booo, cheap cliffhanger. Booo, cheap plot devices. 

I've just gotta say, William is so difficult to stage scenes with because as soon as there are people around that he doesn't know, he runs away. Seriously. That might be how some of us loners feel on the inside, but to actually do it... No wonder Tula's bosses could never approach him!