A meeting of minds..

I managed to finish cleaning without any other distractions, when Kara came back into the house with my father. Since it was Friday, (and my house was already clean), I was about to suggest a movie for Kara when the phone rang.

"Hey girl, it's Tomeika." I smiled. I should have known they wouldn't forget about hanging out. "What's up?"

"Me and Jada wanted to meet up with you guys for drinks tonight. Especially after what happened to MT. I bet he didn't plan to get put out like that! I mean, Damn! For a minute I thought I was watching WWE."

I had to smile. "Tonight's fine. But I've got to leave before midnight."

"That's cool. Me and Jada have to be at the hairdressers by 7 am. I can't fight crime when I'm lookin' raggedy." One thing I had to admit, the two of always had their act together when it came to their appearance. On more than one occasion I had seen guys slip them their number after a fight.

We agreed to meet at Bar Louie's at 6:30. Which left me about forty-five minutes to get ready.

My father looked at me strangely when I told him that I was going out, not because he had a problem watching Kara, but because he had a problem with me going out. Alone. With the possibility of meeting other people. Men specifically. Human men.

I quickly showered and got dressed, even taking a minute to throw on a little makeup.

"What time will you be back?" he snapped. I tried not to look directly at him when I answered. "It won't be until late. I have to meet with Dispatch at midnight." I quickly ran outside to flag a cab. As I walked into the restaurant I could see that Tomeika, Jada, and Leroy, had already started without me. Walking over to the table, I sat down and proceeded to join in. It only took me a few minutes to catch up with them since they were only on their third round when I joined in. The average superhero can't get drunk and because of our superpowers, we have a higher tolerance for alcohol. In my case, I've had stronger drinks off-planet than the stuff they serve here.

By our fifth round, I guess some of the guys in the bar thought that we were drunk enough to approach. Leroy had seen some girl over at another table and went to try to talk to her. To their credit, the guys weren't bad looking. One even kind of reminded me of Neil. He had just gotten bold enough to grab my hand, when I saw Jada glance towards the door and frown.

"Hey Tomeika. Isn't that the guy we had to beat down when we went to get that guy for dispatch?"

I turned and spotted Leksi at the same time he spotted me. And the guy holding my hand. All hell broke loose. Leksi charged over and tossed the guy to the side. His friends, naturally, took exception to having their buddy tossed across the room like a ragdoll. The next thing we knew, everybody was in on it. There were chairs, drinks, and people flying all over the place. I started to join in then stopped. Who invited him anyway? Jada and Tomeika had stood up to intervene, but I motioned them to sit back down.

"You're not gonna help him?" Jada asked, tossing back another drink.

"He's a big boy. He can handle himself." Both of them smiled at me and relaxed in their chair. A few minutes later, Leroy made his way back over to the table. "What's with your boy?" I shook my head then ducked for a flying chair. "He's delusional. He'll get over it."

I leaned over to Leroy. "I'm meeting with Dispatch at Midnight." Glancing over, I looked to see how Leksi was doing in the brawl. Some guy had him up against the wall, his feet dangling in the air. I wanted to stay to see how everything worked out, but I looked down at my watch to see it was 11:30. "I've got to go guys. Can you throw him in cab for me and send him back to my place?" The girls nodded smiling.

I looked back once as I made my way out the door to see Leksi on the floor out cold.

A reason to Panic?

Finally, a day of peace. After the incident with Ron, I decided to lay low for awhile. At least until I could get Leksi off-planet. I tried talking to my father about it, but of course, he won't listen. He's a father. They never do.

I turned on the TV and decided to do some cleaning. Vaccuuming, dusting, dishes (ugh), the usual routine. I was on a serious roll with the vaccuum cleaner when I happened to turn and notice that MT (Mack Truck) was on TV again.

What does he do? Call the station as soon as he gets the call from dispatch?

He's pounding away on Iguana Man, and then he stops to pull out his phone. Evidently, he hasn't learned his lesson from the last time. He started laughing at something on the phone, then doubled over coughing.

Coughing?

Something wasn't right. From that point on, Iguana Man grabbed a pole and took over. I hate to say it, but he beat MT like he stole something. Turning off the vaccuum, I whipped open my phone and hit dispatch's number. He'd been avoiding me the past few days, but if necessary, I'd go out to headquarters.

"Yes, Terra." He sounded tired and frustrated.

"You saw the news?"

"Yeah." I waited for a moment to see if he was going to say anything else, but there was just silence. "Tony, tell me what's going on."

He sighed. "Come to headquarters at midnight. I'll explain as much as I can."

More and more problems

The rest of the day was uneventful, but I could tell whenever I passed, that Ron was watching. I was about to leave for the day when I got a call from Raz.

"Hey Terra."

"Hey Tomieka. You feeling better?" Even though the whole stunt with Christopher still had me a little peeved, she was still a team member. Besides, Dispatch was the one I was going to take a chunk out of - that is, if he'd ever answer my calls. I'm tempted to do a fly-by, but he's probably got that place locked down tighter than Fort Knox.

"Oh yeah! Much better!" I heard her shuffling some stuff around in the background. "Anyway, to show that there are no hard feelings...we want to take you and Leroy out for drinks this weekend."

I started to instantly say no, then thought about it. My father was here and showed absolutely no signs of leaving, so I had a babysitter. Not to mention the fact that my apartment seemed even smaller with Leksi there.

"Okkaayy...yeah,sure. Why not?" I stood to finish packing my briefcase. "Just let me know when and where."

"Cool! I'll tell Jada it's a plan. See ya."

"See ya."

I hung up the phone and walked out of the office towards the front, when I heard Ron on the phone in the conference room.

"How many databases did you check?" He paused. "And you checked all the overseas databases?" He paced back and forth. "It sounded like a Russian accent, but hell if I know. He was a big guy, like 6"8, maybe 6"9...all muscle."

I eased past while he had his back turned. "He can't just friggin not exist!" I could hear the frustration in his voice. He sighed. "Whatever. I'll check a few other options when I get home." I hurried around the corner when I heard him slam down the phone.

Damn him. Damn Leksi. And Damn my father for calling him here in the first place. I flipped open my phone once I got outside to try to reach Dispatch again. Of course, no answer. I started to dial Leroy, but figured I'd wait until later. All I needed was an herbal tisane, and some peace and quiet.

I had plenty of the first, who knows where I was going to find the second.

The Lunchdate from Hell...

Lunch was an adventure. It's actually taken me several days to recover from it and him. Thanks to Leksi with his high-handed atitude, I was able to pass him off as a visiting Russian dignitary.

Its absolutely amazing the kind of service you receive when people think you're important. I made sure I took him to a restaurant far, far away from the job. The last thing I needed was half the building stolling by. As we walked away from the building though, I had one question.

"Leksi? How in the world did you get here?"

He shrugged(typical)and answered, "Your father located a driver for me." I turned to him. "A driver?" I shook my head. "Never mind, I don't want to know."

Did I say earlier that lunch was an adventure? I meant a nightmare. He barked at the servers, the busboys, the waiters, the maitre'd...nobody was safe. I finally had to lean forward and threaten to walk out on him when he made one of the waitresses burst into tears.

I managed to get him out of the restaurant......I wish it was that easy to get him out of my life.

I put him in a cab back to my house and me and my now pounding head found our way back to the office. I hadn't been at my desk 2 seconds before Ron showed up.

"Hey Terra. I didn't know you were engaged. I guess that nips that rumor in the bud, huh? Where's he from?" he asked casually. A little too casually.

Knowing Ron like I do, Leksi's picture was probably being scanned through government databases everywhere.

Damn. Just what I needed.

Back to normal.....Almost

Since the drama seemed to be (for the most part anyway)over, I figured I might as well go back to work. So that next morning, I woke up, got dressed, got Kara washed and dressed, dropped her at the daycare, and went back to work.

There were several surprised faces, even though I hadn't been gone that long. Especially Ron in Procurement. I was tempted to hang him out the window by one of my tentacles for all the confusion he had started, but decided that it wasn't worth it; he would get his soon enough.

Lucky for me, they hadn't given away my office. Even with the downsizing we just went through offices were a rare commodity. Sitting down at my desk, I dived in.

It actually felt good to be back and in the swing of things. A million reports needed to be run, some really, really dumb, and some that actually challenged my mind. Everything was going fine until lunchtime.

I stepped out of the office and noticed Ron at the end of the hall, talking to two of the staff assistants. They all looked up, startled, and the two girls quickly walked the other way. Sad. Some things never changed. Ron smirked and started walking towards me. " Hey Terra. What's up?"

"Hi Ron." I turned and started walking in the opposite direction. "Nothing's happening."

"Did you know they moved your intern over to the new building?" I shook my head. "Well, him and one of the new receptionists were getting hot and heavy in one of the back offices. Corporate decided to split them up."

"And we haven't seen your friend Edward in a while." I stopped and turned to Ron. He knew something. He always did. We still hadn't quite figured out how.

"Number 1 - Edward's not my friend. Number 2 - why are you telling me?"

He shrugged. "Oh, I don't know. You, him and Leroy seemed awfully cosy." I narrowed my eyes at him and took a deep breath to speak. Before I could say anything, one of the assistants came down the hall at a fast trot.

"Um, Terra? You have a visitor up front." She had this big grin on her face. What the hell was she smiling at? I rolled my eyes at Ron and walked towards the front desk.

I walked through the glass doors to the lobby and froze in my tracks.
Ilektros stood before me, dressed in earth clothes. Now, mind you, I never said he wasn't sexy, I just said I didn't want him. I knew that I had nobody but my father to thank for this. Lexi stood before me, dressed to the nines in a dark charcoal suit and maroon tie. Evidently, word had spread that there was a man up front, because not only did almost every woman in the office make an excuse to come up to the front, but several women who didn't even work in my office suddenly came up with a reason to visit. Too much drama for my first day back. As I glanced around, I noticed Ron standing in one of the doorways, arms crossed, frowning. I smiled back at him. This was one that he couldn't have found out about before hand.

Leslie Connors, one of the part time receptionists asked, "Terra, why didn't you tell us you were getting married?" I just smiled back and walked over to him.

"What in the hell are you doing here?" I hissed, pulling him to the side.

"I told your father that I needed to see more of your lifestyle. "We saw that this is what most 'business' men wear. He said I should..." he frowned, then brightened as he remembered. "Take you to lunch." I wasn't all that hungry, but he had to get the hell out of here. "Stay right here while I get my purse."

I walked back past Ron, who surprisingly enough, didn't say anything. But I could have sworn he took Lexi's picture with his camera phone.