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Huddled around the table in the safe house with the team, Edgar looks at Tasha with soft eyes. Rich drops the day’s earnings onto the table and announces, “The mission was mostly a success, though I wasn’t able to procure everything.” A few minutes go by with Patterson, Kurt, and Jane bickering about the haul. Meat this and no meat that.
“These Doritos are you kidding?” whines Patterson. Rich knows she does not like the Czech Doritos.
“What do you what from me? Do it yourself next time!”
During the commotion, Reade and Zapata inch closer together looking at their friends and bunker-mates in awe. Damn, they’re luck and unluck at the same time. Disrupting the moment, one of the alarms on Patterson’s computer goes on alerting everyone to a new lead in the case. A mysterious new bomb. Jane and Kurt had seen it before, and the team plans next steps. After the briefing, Zapata makes eye contact with Rich signaling him to follow her away from the others. She slips away from the others and Rich follows as instructed. Reade saw the interaction and followed them too after a few seconds.
They wind up in a hall and Rich saying in a hushed whisper, “Hey, hey, hey, hey! I got your thing too!” Tasha stops walking and turns around to face him. Rich hands over the paper bag and offers, “Let me know if I got the wrong one, or if you need me to go back out for anything. If you ever need to talk…” he leaves the last sentence in the air not needing to finish it. Without a word, Tasha turns to leave and retreat back to her and Reade’s shared room.
Out of sight on the stairs, Reade is listening in on them. “What could she need from Rich?” he asks himself. Once he sees that Rich has left the area, Ed goes to find Tasha and talk to her. When he gets to their room, he sees her shoving the brown paper sack into her bag, “Hey, everything okay? What is that?” he asks as he approaches her bag from behind her. Hearing Ed come into the room Tasha paused her movements. Leaning over her shoulder Reade places a hand on Zapata’s lower back to stabilize his balance, and he says with a teasing tone, “Now what do we have here?”
Tasha leans into his touch for a second getting distracted by his warmth, but quickly sobers, “Don’t worry about it, Reade. None of your business.”
“I disagree. Anything that makes my girlfriend too quiet is definitely my business. Are you going to tell me what’s up or will I have to keep asking? I'm perfectly fine with bothering you about it.” Reade states folding his arms across his chest now.
“I don’t know what you want me to tell you. There’s nothing to say, yet. You can keep asking, but I will hold firm on this: you won’t be getting any answers anytime soon girlfriend or not.” Tasha had turned around to face him, and now leans into him to give him a kiss on his lips first, then on his cheeks. “You can stay in here with me and wait for me to finish what I’m doing, or you can wait for me with the others.”
“I’ll wait here.” Reade replies cupping her face and giving her another kiss. There’s a small apology behind the kiss for being somewhat intrusive even though there were only good intensions.
“Good. You have to turn around though.” Zapata commands with a smirk on her face and twirls a pointed finger at him demonstrating what she demands. She really loves the man in front of her and would usually tell him everything. He is her best friend after all, but she is just not ready at the moment and cannot act on hunches with something this important.
Reade complies and turns around facing the door frame. He hears the crinkle of the paper sack and the zipper of her bag open and close. Once she’s done, she releases a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding and turns around to face Ed’s back. Tasha takes a step closer to him and brings her arms around his waist hugging him from behind. Tasha moved so quietly that Reade hadn’t heard her and startled at the feeling of someone touching him, but he quickly recovered and clasp his hands over her hands covering his stomach.
“I love you, Reade. You know that right?”
Reaching behind him to lead Tasha in front of him, he replies, “Are you kidding, Tash? Of course, I know that, do you know I love you? I’ll be by your side always. And when you need me, I’ll be behind you too.” Reade looked lustfully into Tasha’s eyes while he moved his hands down from the middle of her back to cup her ass and squeezed it tightly. It was enough to draw a moan from Zapata’s lips and pull her legs apart some.
“No, Ed. We’re not doing this now. We literally just found out there’s a bomb nearby.” Zapata tilts her head out of the room to emphasize her point. Of course, she would love to lock the door and throw off her close in front of him, but it’s not the right time and there’s too much going on in her head.
With Tasha spinning out of his grasp, Ed huffs a “Fine,” in response and lets her walk about of the room following close behind her. They head back to the main room with the rest of the team and continue coming up with a game plan for the rest of the day and mission.
Coming up the stairs, Patterson looks at them and asks for their help. She has some documents that could use their agent expertise. “What do you have for us?” Reade questions.
“Rich and I have a document here showing the evidence log for a weapon matching the description Jane and Weller gave us of the bomb. It shows the bomb was logged into evidence on May 24, 2011 —”
Before Patterson could continue, Zapata interrupts saying, “Wait a minute, I know that date. It was my first day at the New York Office.”
“Oh yeah, I remember that. It was my first day too. You stole my seat!” Reade responds jokingly.
“Hey, Fischer said to choose a seat and I chose one. It happened to be yours, but without my decision we would not have accomplished what we did that day,” Zapata responds nostalgically. For the next long while, Zapata and Reade rattle stories back and forth about the first few days of their time at the NYO. Patterson and Rich were listening and writing down anything that can be useful in their research, but they are also antagonizing them while telling the stories to make sure they continued on the right path.
After all of the stories from their first few days together have been retold, and Patterson and Rich complete their research, the team of agents head out into the field to stop the European terrorist attack.
Hours have passed since Tasha and Ed were in their room together; on their arrival back to the safe house, they head into their room where they get onto the bed and cuddle. Reade ends up falling asleep, but Zapata can’t stop thinking about the package in her bag. Ed rolls onto his side facing away from Tasha, which provides the perfect opportunity to deal with what’s in her mind. Tasha quietly stands from their bed and walks over to her bag to unzip it. She retrieves the brown sack and heads into the restroom. Breathing a little heavier than before, she reaches into the bag and pulls out a box containing the pregnancy test Rich had purchased for her. With a mixture of nervousness, excitement, and dread, Tasha sits on the toilet and pees on the stick.
After what feels like hours have passed, which have really only been 3 minutes, Zapata picks up the test off of the counter and looks at it. In clear letters, the test says, “Positive.” It's practically screaming at her. Butterflies flutter in her stomach at the idea of her and Reade’s child developing inside her, but at the same time horror is building within. She and Reade are literally on the run for their lives living in a secret bunker with their ex-FBI coworkers. How is anyone supposed to bring a child into a world where its parents are trying to bring down one of the most powerful people in the world? Tasha takes a deep breath and shifts her gaze to the mirror in front of her. Her eyes fill with tears and turn red and she lets her head fall to her chest. Tasha lets a couple tears fall before she shifts her thinking from negative scary thoughts to positive “what-if” scenarios. These make her feel better and strong enough to walk out of the bathroom. Ed is still laying on his side asleep, so she crawls back onto the bed behind him, places the pregnancy test on the floor, and drapes her arm over his waist.
A couple hours pass before either of them stir. Ed wakes first twisting on the bed to face his girlfriend and plants a kiss on her forehead. Practically awake before the light kiss, Zapata completely wakes up now tilting her head to look up at the man on the bed next to her.
“Good morning,” she whispers knowing full well it's definitely dark outside.
“Hi,” Reade says back in a hushed voice.
“I’m ready to tell you —,” she barely finished her sentence before Reade is sitting up straight in bed.
“I’m ready to listen. Lay it on me.”
Taking a deep breath, Tasha reaches behind her to pick up the test from the floor. “Close your eyes.” At first, he doesn’t comply, so she adds sweetly, “Please.” And he does. Tasha picks up one of Reade’s hands and flips it palm side up and places the test stick in his hand.
Feeling light weight in his palm, he opens his eyes and sees clear as day the word “Pregnant” displayed on the stick. “Tash…” he gasps, but continues, “Pregnant? You’re pregnant?” Tasha waits a second before nodding her head. Reade crashes into her engulfing her in a tight hug; Zapata is actually surprised by his positive response, she thought he would be upset or sad, but he seems really excited at the possibility of becoming a dad. “I love you, Tash. I don’t know what to say. Are you okay? How are you doing?” he asks concerned.
“What are we supposed to do with this right now with everything that’s happening? With people’s lives on the line? I don’t know what to do, Ed,” Zapata speaks suddenly. Reade reaches out with his other hand to grasp one of Tasha’s hands, and moves them together to her chin to tilt it up towards him.
“We are going take a breather, eat dinner, and sleep on it. Then we will sit down and talk tomorrow. How does that sound?” Instead of answering, Tasha leans forward and joins their lips in a firm kiss as if to make it a promise that they will talk tomorrow about the new possibilities. Together they stand and head to the common area to get some food, and they leave their secret in their room for now.