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You've reached Detective Nick Burkhardt. If this is an emergency, please call 911. Otherwise leave a message and I'll get back to you ASAP.

[Calls, texts, and emails are a-okay! He has both a work email and personal email, and an office phone and cell phone. Just specify which one.]

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[and she'll be hanging out in her apartment trying to distract herself until he shows up.]

[It's a little bit closer to later afternoon when he shows up, because things had gotten slightly complicated and Lyall hadn't let him leave before they'd talked about it.

He's still reeling from him, but he's also pretty worried about Melissa, especially now that he's back in town and in full possession of all his network memories.

The concern's probably obvious in his expression as he knocks on the door.]

Melissa? It's Nick.

[Melissa will open the door, a little smile on her face because... she's good at that. She doesn't want to just drop the topic on him immediately.]

Hey. [She'll move aside to let him in and close the door behind him.] How was your vacation?

[He knows her too well to be really reassured by the smile, but - at least she's not in tears or something, he's not sure he could handle that.

He moves inside, giving a slightly wry smile at her question.]

Aside from the apparently terrible timing, good. Looks like I missed a lot though.

Yeah, it's been... eventful. [mostly in bad ways, made obvious by way of her dragging her hand down her face.]

So I've heard.

[He's guessing she's not talking about the aliens working with the FBI, or the arrests or upcoming trial, at least not really.]

What happened?

[well she is, but... yeah the personal stuff hasn't helped.]

Ignoring the actual serious shit that went down, since you already know all that... short version? I got drunk, slept with someone, and now for some reason feel fucking awful about it. [excuse her while she moves to flop down on the couch.]

...oh.

[Huh. Yeah, Nick hadn't been expecting that. Any part of it, really, and he's not quite sure what to say to that. He follows her to the couch, picking up her feet to sit on it next to her and then resettling them in his lap.]

Was it like a one-night stand, or with someone that's going to make things complicated?

Both. [yes that is possible.] ...It was Eugen, but I'm pretty sure he knows it was a one time thing. [but it does make things a little bit more complicated, so.]

[...right, that could be awkward. Not definitely awkward, but still. Mostly he's trying to figure out why she feels awful about it.]

Did, uh. Did you and Karl ever talk about things being exclusive?

No, never. [She sighs, reaching up to run a hand distractedly through her hair.] Which is kind of why I'm so goddamn confused right now.

[Okay, there went that idea. He frowns, letting out a huff of air, trying to think. Melissa'd never said anything, but maybe...]

Do you want to be?

What? No, I... [but she trails off, her immediate instinct crashing to a halt when she remembers how oddly irritated she was when Eugen was calling Karl her boyfriend, and how even Sheila's offhand comment about being glad she was single got to her.

Excuse your bff for having a sudden 'deer in headlights' look, Nick. This honestly had not occurred to her.]

Edited (i'm sorry i noticed a typo and had to fix it orz) 2014-04-21 18:16 (UTC)

[Nick recognizes that look. He's had that look before, probably most recently when talking to Alex and Yuji about Lyall. It's pretty much because of that that he's quiet for a moment. He'll tease her about it later.]

Didn't think about it before now?

Not at all. [why would she? It was just sex, something she's done god knows how many times before. There was no reason she'd think about it being more than that, when... more was something she'd never experienced before.]

Nick absently curls his hand around her foot, pressing his thumb into it - because apparently he really is her gay twin and it's his duty to give her a foot massage while she talks about her not!boyfriend being a jerk and possibly has a mini crisis over dating. "I'm going to guess you're thinking about it now."

"Unfortunately." She doesn't really want to, because she doubted an easy answer would just magically appear. It wasn't a thing that even occurred to her most of the time. Not to mention that now that she was thinking about it, she feels like some stupid high schooler with their first crush because Nick might actually be right here.

She leans back onto the arm rest, groaning in frustration as she messes with her hair. "This is so fucking stupid," she mutters. Ignoring feelings is a viable option, right?

Ignoring feelings is a very viable option, as far as Nick's concerned. It's always served him well. ...or not so well, but still. "It's not stupid," he protests. "It's just... really crappy timing, paired with Karl being a really big jerk."

Says the hypocrite who probably would have done pretty much the same thing, a year ago. But that's different, he knows better now.

"No kidding." She won't argue that at least, but she still feels like an idiot about worrying over something like this. There are so many more serious things going on right now... her private life doesn't need to be the thing they're dealing with here. Right? Right.

If only it were that easy to get it out of her head. "What the hell am I even supposed to do?"

Nick makes a little bit of a face at that. "I'm not sure you're asking that of the right guy, here." Considering four months is still a record long relationship for him, network or not. Not to mention it'd taken going outside the pulse boundaries for him to do anything at Lyall.

"I guess - what would you want to do, if he hadn't skipped town for very noble but still irritating reasons?"

"Pretend it never occurred to me and hope that I can ignore it?" It's only half a joke- Melissa is so, so incredibly out of her depth here. Even four months is longer than her longest dating stint, and that was with Eugen so it hardly counts.

She sighs, dragging a hand down her face. As much as she would like to ignore it... she knows that's not gonna happen. "Fuck, I don't even know."

"That's completely an option. Sometimes, it even works. ...but I'm gonna bet this really isn't one of those times." If you're already involved with the person you have feelings for, it's really hard to ignore them and hope they go away.

He lets out a huff of air. "Normally I'd say to talk it over with him, but..."

"Not exactly an option right now, is it?" Melissa sighs, exasperated. In a way, it's good that Karl's not around- she has some time to sort things out. Of course, she has no idea when he might be back, which leaves her with this hanging over her head until he does. So she's got to do at least a portion of this on her own, which she doesn't like one bit.

"Yeah, that'd be the but." Nick absently bites his lip, considering. "He'll have to come back for the trial. If we can find out when that is..." Or at least, hopefully he'd have to come back for the trial.

"I could bug the shit out of Gerald, I guess, but I have a feeling he probably doesn't know either." Karl sure as hell didn't, since his instructions were incredibly vague. Ugh. What a jerk.

Even as she says it, she shakes her head, running a hand through her hair. "I guess I'll just do it... whenever he gets his ass back here."

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