Chapter Text
Prologue
Ward Meachum had walked into the office that Thursday morning expecting it to be like any other day. Mundane. Most days were like that since getting clean. Four months. The worst ones of his life, but he guessed it was for the best. At least that was what everyone kept telling him. Still, it was boring. He even wished Danny would come back from his vacation with Colleen, just to have some interaction. Once he had asked Megan out to lunch, an offer she politely declined. That hadn’t been surprising.
Ward hadn’t expected to see Lexi Sincerbeaux sitting at his desk when he walked in that day. Confused, he set his coffee down, and raised his arms up, “What are you doing back so early?”
“I took the allotted time off.” Lexi explained in a cool tone, crossing her legs to look wickedly back at him.
“You know I would have let you take more time off.”
“I know, but I missed you,” She smirked, while standing, and walking over to her boss. While reaching out to thumb his tie, Lexi tsked, “Terrible color. I’m gone for a month and a half and you go to shit without me.”
While wanting to tell her that was an understatement, Ward instead pulled Lexi in for a tight embrace. Arms wrapped around his neck, Lexi sighed contently, and let the man rub her back in a comforting manner. She knew there was so much to say and so much that she didn’t want him to, so they just held each other, for as long as they needed.
Finally letting go, Ward sighed, “Are you back for the rest of the week? Thursday is an odd day to come back in. Why not wait until Monday?”
Lexi shrugged, “I wanted to just check in. How’s the progress going?”
“Four months of hell.”
While laughing, Lexi walked over to the chair across from Ward’s desk, and laughed ironically, “It’s been almost a year since I’ve last had a cigarette and I want to kill myself still?”
Ward returned the laugh, shaking his head and walking around his desk. It felt good to have her back. As selfish as that sounded. The two had maintained both a work relationship and a friendship throughout the past eleven months or so. It had been a difficult year for all of them, but seeing her back in the office almost gave him the sense of normalcy, despite knowing that it was far from that.
After having been intimate with each other, the two had gone back to a work relationship, though it soon transformed into a friendship. Neither of them could erase the secrets they had shared and even though their partnership was platonic, they were certainly more than employee and employer. Besides, Ward knew about Frank and after a little while, Lexi knew about Harold.
Opening up his draw, Ward explained, “I didn’t know you’d be back so soon, but I did take the liberty of getting you a little something. Well, Megan did so you should thank her.”
“Oh, darling, you shouldn’t have.” Lexi teased, while standing up and walking over to receive the small gift bag from her boss.
As Lexi looked into the gift bag, Ward shrugged, “I think Megan would have rather done that than go out to lunch with me that day. Anyway, just think of it as a welcome back from maternity leave gift.”