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She leaned her back to the cold stone wall, people passing by one by one, from time to time some familiar faces even greeting her as they entered the large room whose entrance she guarded. She checked the time again, five minutes before the meeting starts. Five minutes and he still wasn't there. She should've smelt it coming when he refused her offer to drive him, a moment of which she gave him the benefit of the doubt by judging that there was no use for her crossing the city and then head back.
That's it. I'll call him.
She took off her phone, no missed call or text in sight from him, as she scrolled through her contact's list all the way to the letter S. "There you are," a breathless voice got her attention, Spencer's heavy panting obstructing him from giving any more information, so he restrained himself to only mimicking aggressively to her back, an inefficient way of communicating signaled by her frown and parted lips. "I thought the entrance was on the opposite way of the building, so I had to circle it," he explained, her confusion fading away in an understanding nod.
"Should we go inside?" she asked, more or less to read his face for any signs of doubt or distress, but he complied, following her inside to find a large mass of people talking to one another or choosing their seats, patiently waiting for the meeting to start.
Scanning the room, Spencer did realize that to his surprise, there were quite a few of familiar faces in the same room as him. "Isn't that Agent Weissmann from second floor?" he whispered, eyes following a broad-shouldered man in a well-tailored suit pouring himself a glass of water.
"There are a lot of people from the office in here," she leaned into his ear, guiding him to a quiet corner from where she had access to visualize the whole crowd. "Just because the FBI doesn't acknowledge the repercussions this job has on our mental health, it doesn't mean we're gonna hang around and not take matters into our own hands." He hummed nonchalantly at her comment, his mind completely elsewhere as he continued to scan the room, his fingers' fidgeting unconsciously betraying his calmness. It must've been hard, she thought to herself, stepping into a whole new environment with people that, although are experiencing similar struggles, are also the same ones you bump into at work. Maybe he can't move past that. Maybe that'll block him from opening up. Maybe she shouldn't have brought him here. "Oh, Mister Foreman!" a lady a few groups away from them greeted a warm, familiar face that gained Eleanor's attention, the friendly chat between the two being carefully watched from afar, up until the moment when Mister Foreman had caught her gaze as well. She gave away a cordial smile, slightly tilting her head, as he quickly finished his conversation to come her way.
"Spence, quickly," she shook his arm, snapping him back to reality. She leaned forward, a bewildered Spencer having no other way but follow along. "Someone will come to us right now and he'll introduce himself as Francis Foreman. He used to be the chief of NYPD." She tightened the grip around his arm, forcing him to stand still and not turn away. "He's gonna be all nice, most probably show you pictures of his family, his grandkids- If he does do that, I need you to tell him that they look just like his daughter, okay?"
