For a moment none of them said anything as they watched Sofia leave, angry, hurt and betrayed.

It was finally Natasha who broke the silence. "Toni, someone should go talk to her," she suggested as softly as the loud music would allow. He held her gaze for a long time and for a moment they all thought he was going to argue, before relenting that he was probably the best option and nodded before heading after their friend.

"Zach, is Joe good to crash on your sofa tonight?" Natasha asked.

Zachariah considered the question before also nodding. "Yeah, my housemates might be confused it's not you, but they'll be cool with it."

"Good," Natasha decided, her voice much harder and it was clear that this part was an order, not a suggestion. "Keep an eye on him until we've had a chance to make sure Sofia's okay."

"No one would be okay after that kind of revelation, especially when we all knew so much more than her," Zachariah reminded her.

"I'm right here, you know," Joseph grumbled.

"Shut it," Natasha cut in. "You turned a small thing into a giant mess for the rest of us to clean up. I'm trying not to think about the shitstorm that is going to happen when I have to take this to HR. Which I really should've already done."

"HR?"

"What, you think I'm going to just let you bully a colleague and get away with it?" Natasha asked as if he were joking.

"And if she did, I wouldn't," Zachariah confirmed. "And I doubt Toni would either."

"So drink up, wash your face and sleep it off on Zach's couch," Natasha ordered.

Zachariah didn't give him a chance to argue and practically dragged him off to the loos in the hope that one of the sinks had working taps. He had realised Natasha had assigned each of them a participant to check on. That left her with a rather nonplussed Olivia, who was clearly gobsmacked any of this had transpired. Natasha sighed to herself and then rubbed at her face. "Come on," she waved Olivia after her as she made a beeline to the bar to order a half dozen shots.

"Um, how many of those are for you?" Olivia asked timidly.

Natasha turned a surprisingly mischievous look to her. "How many do you want?"

Olivia glanced back at them. "Right now? At least two."

"Race you then," Natasha said, reaching for the first one and Olivia followed suit.

In the end they split them evenly and Natasha led them out of the club and into the relative quiet of town as they started walking to the nearest bus stop. "So, how are you doing?"

Even though they'd only known each other for a few months, the derisive laugh that left Olivia at that question surprised Natasha. She rather had the younger woman pegged as an optimist, or naive. "How can I possibly be doing after all that?"

Natasha bit back her automatic reply, and just nodded to herself. "Then what do you need to hear? Or want to say?"

Olivia turned from where she had been looking over the practically meaningless timetable attached to the bus shelter back to the other woman. "Why didn't you tell me you knew it wasn't me?"

"I…" Natasha trailed off with a sigh. "Honestly, I forgot. And yeah, I know that's a crap excuse."

It was Olivia's turn to sag, she couldn't deny that they'd had rather more to think about over the last forty eight hours. She flopped down onto the cold and uncomfortable bench and suddenly started laughing. "I want to be so angry with you, and you're right it's a terrible excuse, but… it's honest, and weirdly that's kinda what I've been wanting."

Natasha gave a single chuckle at that.

Olivia leant back so her head was resting against the cool glass behind her. "What happens now?" She asked, turning to where Natasha was still stood.

"I wish I knew," Natasha admitted. "Sofia…"

"You're worried about her."

"Of course I am," Natasha snapped. "Sorry, I… probably deserved that."

"No," Olivia said. "You've always looked out for us, or tried to. How did it come to this?"

"People are dumb, every single one of us."

"Even you?"

"I've had my moments," Natasha agreed with a knowing half smile. "Though those are stories for lots more alcohol and less of an ongoing catastrophe."

"That bad, huh?"

Natasha turned away from Olivia and looked down the empty street and checked her watch. "Screw the bus, screw it being a school night, I need a lot more alcohol for the impending cluster." She paused long enough to look back at Olivia. "And yes, it is that bad. Allerton humiliated our department, we were already fighting for survival, Joseph's behaviour will just be the icing on the cake when HR gets involved. I'm not sure if we can come back from this."

Olivia blinked as the full weight of Natasha's honesty hit her. It almost sounded like Natasha had given up, and if that were true Olivia couldn't help but think it really was the end. Maybe she should mention this to Antonis or Zachariah? But right now more drinking was starting to feel like a good idea.

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She was broken out of her reverie as a pair of headlights lit up the street as the bus came around the corner.

"Well?" Natasha queried. "Am I getting you home safely and drinking alone, or are you staying up past bedtime?"

Olivia bounced up from her seat with a grin on her face. "You're like the badass older sister I never had." Natasha grinned in return and they scarpered before the bus reached the stop.

~-x-~

"Sofia!" Antonis practically had to run to catch up with her. He understood that she was angry and therefore in full marching mode, but how she'd gone that fast in those heels eluded him entirely.

She didn't turn to face him, but she did pause to allow him to catch up. Hugging herself against the cold as a way to pretend it wasn't because she was hurting.

But of course Antonis saw right through her, he saw through each wall every single one of them always tried to build. He simply opened his arms and she collapsed against his chest as she sobbed. He hugged her comfortingly as she trembled with her tears and emotions.

Finally she said, "I feel embarrassed and ashamed."

He chuckled. "You have nothing to feel that way about."

"No?" She queried, pulling out of his arms. "He is my boyfriend, and yet I was the last to know that he kissed her and that he tried to punish her for wanting to tell me."

"He wanted to hide it from you."

"But no one else told me!"

Antonis opened his mouth to argue against that, but closed it again as he realised she was right. "If I had known what I had almost walked in on, I might have handled it differently," he finally said.

Sofia sagged again as she gave a derisive little laugh. "What could you have done? You had to raise it appropriately first, and that was not me." She started walking again, brushing her long brown hair out of her face in an effort to hide the fact she was wiping her tears away.

Antonis sighed as he kept pace with her. "This sucks," he finally opted for.

Of all things that finally made Sofia laugh. "We are far, far beyond that." He chuckled too at her observation. "What am I going to do?" She asked quietly.

"Go home, sleep. Comfort food. No rushed decisions. Get all the facts you need to know how you feel about what happened."

"Is it that simple?"

"No," he replied. "But we all broke your trust in some form, not intentionally, but only you can decide how our reasons feel to you."

"I…" Sofia trailed off. "I feel lonely."

"Maybe also call your sisters tomorrow."

"Yeah…" She trailed off, looking at nothing far off in the distance. "What if they judge me?"

Antonis stopped her with a firm hand on her shoulder. "You have done nothing wrong. There is nothing here that reflects badly on you."

"He should have been able to come to me!"

"Yes, but that is on him, not you," Antonis corrected firmly, eyes flashing on her behalf. "Naí?"

Sofia held his gaze as if his eyes could fix all her hurt if she just believed him. "Sì," she finally agreed with a weak nod.

"Good," he said, trying to reinforce the point. Though he knew it would take her longer than this to start to heal, he could at least minimise the damage.

"Toni, I…" She trailed off uncertainly, biting her lip and her hand slid into his hair as she stepped closer still. "I want -"

It took all of Antonis' willpower not to sigh as he gently extracted her hand and took a step backwards again. "Ochi, no."

"But -"

"You are drunk, and hurting, you don't really want to go down this road."

Sofia held herself tensely for a moment as she wanted to scream that he didn't know what she wanted, before she broke down into a fresh set of tears. He was right. She just wanted to hurt Joseph because of what had happened. She just wanted to feel wanted. She wanted to feel not alone.

Antonis wrapped her back up in a hug. "How?" She asked, and he wasn't sure if her hiccoughs were due to the alcohol or her crying. "How are you always this nice even when we don't deserve it?"

"You do deserve kindness," he corrected. "You are a good person who does not deserve to be here."

"Now you are just trying to make me cry."

~-x-~

"Phone," Zachariah prompted, holding his hand out.

"What?" Joseph demanded.

"Gimme your phone," Zachariah explained. "Then I'm gonna grab some of my things and you can sleep in my bed and I'll take the sofa."

Joseph narrowed his eyes suspiciously. "Why?"

"Because right now, you and Sofia need space from each other. She's hurt and if I were in your shoes I'd be feeling defensive as all hell - assuming of course I'm right in thinking you never meant for things to spiral this far - so talking will only make matters worse. Sleep it off and then try talking tomorrow."

"You don't have to do what Tasha says, you know."

Zachariah laughed. Natasha's main - and he was pretty certain it was her only concern - was making sure Joseph had a roof over his head tonight. Natasha would be assuming Sofia would do what she'd do, and that was not let him in if he went home. Zachariah just happened to have experienced enough of his sister's relationship drama to know that attempting to talk when tempers were already high rarely ended well. He also knew there was a high likelihood of Joseph attempting to reach out to Sofia before she was ready to deal with him.

"Are you really turning down an actual bed?"

Joseph had to concede that point. "I suppose, at this point, that's about as much kindness I'm gonna get."

Zachariah was so close to reminding him that he had started a chain of events that had screwed over their entire team, but he also didn't think that laying on more guilt would help right now. People didn't open up when they felt like they were being attacked. "We all need time," he shrugged. "But we all know you, you're not a bad guy. I just… I don't really know how we got here."

Joseph ran his hands over his face as he fell onto the sofa. "Me neither," he admitted. "I just… I panicked initially. That was why I sent the email, I just thought it'd sow some distrust so people would think she was the one trying to disrupt the team. Then the demo happened and it was so much worse than I thought."

"If you could go back, what would you undo?" Zachariah asked.

"Grandad dying?" Joseph suggested with a wry laugh. Zachariah's lips twitched but he couldn't quite manage a full smile. "I just wish I'd never kissed her. I don't even really understand why I did…"

"We all do stupid things that make no sense sometimes," Zachariah shrugged. "I guess it's how we deal with them afterwards that's the important part."

"Yeah… Guess that's the bit you all think I screwed up."

Zachariah sighed. "You don't?"

Joseph's head snapped up at that. He bit back his initial response as he considered the question. "I still don't understand how telling Sofia was a good option. It was unnecessary."

"If Sofia kissed someone even if it never meant anything, would you want to know about it?"

A silence lingered as Joseph thought about it, before he finally said, "I don't think I would, no."

"Why not?" Zachariah asked, completely devoid of judgement, he was honestly just curious as to Joseph's reasoning.

"Because if I knew, how could I not help but worry I was about to lose her? Even if I didn't, what if she started to realise I wasn't good enough for her?"

"Same way you trust her about anything else. You either trust what she says or you don't, and if you don't, you'll eventually drive her away anyway. Self-fulfilling prophecy and all that."

"Should that not work the other way? Shouldn't she trust me too?"

"She does, or did certainly," Zachariah corrected as softly as he could. "Right now she's trying to work out what just happened, and come to terms with being the last to know. I don't know what the result of her processing tonight will be, but you can't write it all off just yet."

"How do you come back from something like this?"

"By not presuming to know what she's thinking until she tells you."