Hail the Conquering Hero

It's raining this morning and I forgot my garage access card, so I have to park the Saab about a mile away and walk to work in the rain in my new Ferragamos. Great.

I get into my office and I'm drying off when Gail, this gal from International Communications, comes up to me. Gail's a nice gal and all, but we're not real close - she looks at me and kind of tears up then suddenly gives me a big hug. I think she's crying.

"Thank you," she manages. Ah, this is about the shooting. I remember seeing Gail huddled on the floor when Todd went apeshit and started shooting up the joint. She took the rest of the week off, like a lot of people.

"Hey, no problem Gail. You okay?" I can act like a caring person when I have to.

She sniffles and nods, hands me a card, murmurs thanks again, and leaves. Poor gal.

I have a number of cards on my desk from various co-workers. Somebody bought me a fruit basket, which is funny and nice. I didn't think you could still get fruit baskets.

I swing by Corine's desk on my way to the coffee room. She's feeding her goldfish.

"Corine, how you doing?" I say, trying to keep it light. I'm carefully watching her for any indication that she knows My Secret.

She smiles warmly when she sees me. "Hey, Mackenzie. Nice to see you. I had to take a couple days off, after, you know..." Her face darkens.

"Yeah..." I say lamely.

"Listen, I want to thank you --" Now she looks like she's going to cry. The only time I've seen her like this was when they cancelled Angel.

I wave my hands dismissively. "Ahh, it was nothing, really. Keith did most of it, I just helped hold him down."

"Right," she says, meaning 'bullshit.' "I saw."

My chest tightens. What does that mean? I saw. Does that mean, "I saw you subdue the psychotic co-worker by yourself and Keith just jumped in at the end." Or does that mean, "I saw you leap twenty feet through the air and I know that you've got superhuman powers."

"Yeah, about that. Maybe we could keep that on the down-low...?"

She nods.

Awkward moment. I break the mood by saying, "Hey, I brought my french press and some decent coffee. You want a cuppa joe?"

She smiles and bites her lip and she's about to cry so I take off and go make some coffee. I still can't figure out whether she knows or not, but at least she's on my team.

The whole day people are thanking me or congratulating me or asking me what happened - I'm drowning in The Love.

No sign of Margo yet.