They all agreed that Antonis should be the one to break the news. There was some debate on whether or not they followed it up with their traditional sentence or not. They couldn’t decide if it would be harsh to punish him when they all understood what he was currently going through, or if he would react worse to the special treatment if they agreed to waive it this time.
In the end they had met halfway and halved the usual time with a silent understanding that they would be kinder than usual.
Olivia was shocked by the entire proceding. “How can you punish him at a time like this?”
“Standard procedure. If you make a significant mistake you run the office errands for ten days.” Natasha explained with a shrug. “We’ve all done it before, even Toni.”
Zachariah rearranged the magnifying glass he was using to see what he was soldering. He was giving Olivia a quick lesson at the central meeting table. “Toni set the bar too high though. He brought in doughnuts almost every other day the first time.”
“I’m pretty certain the second time you made it up in the hope that you’d get the same treatment again.” Natasha teased causing Olivia to turn from the electronics tutorial she was getting when Sofia giggled.
“Eyes on this.” Zachariah added.
Olivia’s attention snapped back quickly. “But you didn’t even look up!”
“Peripheral vision senses movement. I’m gonna test you on this you know.”
Natasha chuckled where she was sipping her coffee as Olivia turned her attention mostly back to what Zachariah was doing. “I still think it’s harsh. He just lost his grandad!”
“Naí. That is why we reduced it by half.” Antonis corrected. It had taken some time for Olivia to become accustomed to the Greek for yes sounding so much like an English no.
“I thought you were the nice one.”
They all got a chuckle at that. “We considered giving him a pass, just this once, but then what would be the point in having a rule to make people learn?” Natasha asked.
Olivia opened her mouth but she was prevented. “Olivia, it’s okay.” Joseph assured her with a too practiced smile.
“We don’t do this to apportion blame.” Zachariah added kindly. “None of us think he did this maliciously or intentionally. We all understand that he’s not at his best. We do this so that people don’t get complacent about mistakes, so that they think about what happened.”
“It’s not about hating the person who did it.” Natasha added firmly as she too noticed the way Joseph’s smile hadn’t reached his eyes.
“We want people to learn.” Antonis finished.
Olivia considered herself told, though she still wasn’t sure she agreed with them for enacting it in this situation, she could tell where they were coming from. She just hoped it didn’t make Joseph’s situation worse.
~-x-~
Running errands didn’t change anything as far as Joseph was concerned. In a way he would have felt worse if they’d pretended it was to be expected.
He had been the one who had done the work on the amplifier array because he’d been available at the time and had wanted to keep himself busy. In retrospect that was foolish, he knew he wasn’t an engineer, but under normal circumstances he at least trusted himself to be competent enough to follow instructions. At a time when his mind was preoccupied and his emotions fraying at the seams... well, he realised now he should’ve known better. He should have known that something like this was more likely to happen and to get someone to check his work when he was finished. He should have known that not being at his best could lead to problems with his work and not ploughed on regardless.
That was the lesson he had learnt from this and the lesson he knew they’d want him to learn. None of them believed themselves or the others to be infalliable, none would expect anyone to be. However, there were sensible precautions they could take to minimise them and he’d been careless because he’d been selfish. Sofia would tell him they wouldn’t expect him to be thinking straight at such a time, he shouldn’t expect so much of himself. It wasn’t so simple. He’d been brought up by parents who expected nothing less than perfection from their heir, it was difficult to turn so many years of upbringing and expectations off.
In short, he blamed himself and so he believed the others should as well. He believed he deserved to be punished and he didn’t want pity.
Sofia realised what he was doing to himself and did her best to reassure him that he was wrong. He shouldn’t blame himself for an honest mistake that didn’t hurt anyone. Yes, it was frustrating, but people made mistakes and none of them would hold that against him, especially not given the circumstances. When he didn’t appear to be listening to her she asked the rest of the group if they could gently assure him that they didn’t hold it against him. They had agreed to try.
Antonis, Zachariah and Olivia’s attempts had all been the kind of subtle reassurance that Sofia had envisaged. When none of them seemed to be getting through Natasha had opted for an entirely different approach. She had marched Joseph into the lab one day, pointed at the prototype and told him to snap out of it, otherwise she would start holding it against him before leading into what they supposed was supposed to be some kind of motivational rant about how they needed him to start thinking straight so they could complete their work and win themselves some damn funding. They had all heard her through the wall, Olivia couldn’t believe what she was hearing, more astonishingly Zachariah was laughing the whole time and Antonis just shrugged it off saying that he was surprised she hadn’t just smacked the back of Joseph’s head.
As she spent longer and longer on the team Olivia had begun to suspect that they did all care about each other - in their own unique ways - though after that day she wasn’t all that sure.
~-x-~
Olivia wasn’t sure if any of their attempts worked, but she figured at least it would prove to him that they did care. That had to help. Joseph was too good at being able to put on a normal face about matters, too good at covering up what he really felt. Sofia said it was because his parents had trained him to be able to exchange pleasantries with anyone regardless of his own personal feelings about them. Olivia thought that was a sad childhood. However, it made it difficult to tell how well he was recovering from the shock of his grandfather’s death and the loss he felt because of it.
Natasha had put a surprisingly gentle hand on her shoulder and reminded her that all they could do was remind him that they were here for him if he wanted. Otherwise they couldn’t help someone who wasn’t ready to accept help, or didn’t want it. They had to trust Joseph to handle his problems no matter how much they wanted to do things differently.
“How can you just ignore it?” Olivia asked.
Natasha offered her a sad smile. “You’re one of those naturally empathic people, aren’t you?” Olivia shrugged timidly and tiny chuckle almost escaped Natasha. “People only open up when they feel safe to do so. Constantly prodding at them doesn’t usually make them feel safe.” Olivia had to admit that the older woman had a point there.
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In the end she had to stick with being kind and hope it was enough. Zachariah joked she was a fixer and Antonis asked him why he said it like it was a bad thing. Sofia just gave her a quiet thank you and extra coffee.
In truth Joseph wasn’t sure if the kindness was better or worse. He didn’t want them to be angry with him or hate him, but the nicer they were to him the more he felt like he didn’t deserve it. Old lessons about the true meaning of strength - or what his parents thought it meant - were hard to shake. Here he was a full grown man utterly destroyed by the death of one man, it didn’t matter how important someone was to you, you needed to be strong enough to get on with your life. If something as small as this could destroy your entire life then what was it worth?
He slowly withdrew into himself in an attempt not to burden his friends with his problems. Especially Sofia, kind, gentle and wonderful Sofia. He loved her so much and still he couldn’t open up to her. He wanted to protect her from his demons. Ignoring the hurt he could see in her eyes every time he refused to share his feelings with her, telling himself it was for the best. In his darkest moments he started to wonder if it would be best if he let her go, feeling undeserving of her and wanting her to be happy. Those moments always deserted him the moment she turned to him and he saw her soft smile for him, the one she reserved just for him, the one he knew meant ‘I love you’.
“I wish I knew how to break him out of it.” Sofia admitted as she and Olivia headed towards the nearest campus cafe, both girls needed to buy lunch before heading in their separate directions.
“Maybe Tasha’s right, we just have to wait for him to come to us.” Olivia shrugged unhappily.
Sofia sighed. “She probably is.” There was a pause as Sofia rummaged through the coins in her purse, mainly pretending to me interested in the contents whilst really just trying to arrange her thoughts. “I just... wish he would talk to me.” Olivia offered Sofia a sad smile as she squeezed her shoulder, hoping to impart some comfort. They made their way through the queue without discussing it further until Sofia was about to head off to the skate park, instead she pressed a sandwich into Olivia’s hands. “Please, make sure he eats.” Olivia nodded allowing Sofia the freedom to not worry - anymore than she would anyway - for an hour.
She arrived back at the office to find Natasha and Antonis at the meeting table scribbling on a notepad between them. Zachariah had probably already gone to lunch. They both greeted her as she arrived as she asked if Joseph was still about, holding the sandwich up as explanation. Natasha waved vaguely towards the lab and Antonis chuckled as he translated for Olivia. She thanked them as she put both sets of lunches down on her desk before heading into the lab.
She found Joseph surrounded by bottles, scribbling on a piece of paper inbetween tapping quick numbers into a calculator. “This doesn’t look good...” Olivia teased.
Joseph started slightly at the sound of her voice, he had been so absorbed that he hadn’t heard the door. “Oh, I was just working out the least number of solutions I can get away with.” Olivia raised an eyebrow. “Too many analytes increases the risk of me mucking it up by adding too much of one and needing to start over. I also want to minimise the number of dilution steps, which either limits how much of each I can add, or I need to make more in total.” He paused as he took in the hopeless look on her face. “You don’t really care about the finer points of making solutions...”
Olivia couldn’t help but smile a little at that. “Not really. I came to let you know Sofia bought you a sandwich for lunch. I’m pretty certain she won’t be happy with you if you don’t eat it before she gets back.”
Joseph managed a wry smile at that before scrubbing a hand through his blond hair. “I don’t think she’ll be happy with me either way.” He admitted with a sigh. “I’ve not been... I’ve not been as good to her as I should be.”
“You’re still grieving, she doesn’t expect you to be perfect, none of us do.” Olivia reminded him gently. “She just wants to help you through it and she can’t do that if you don’t tell her how she can.”
“She shouldn’t have to help me through it. Loss is a normal part of life and I should be able to cope with it.”
“Hey...” Olivia placed a gentle hand on his arm. “There’s no normal way to deal with this stuff, everyone needs something different when they lose someone important to them. So don’t go thinking like that, Joe, you’re allowed to need time and people to help you through this. You’re allowed to tell us what you need from us.”
Joseph gripped her hand where it rested on her arm as his gaze dropped to the floor. For a moment Olivia thought he was going to start crying and part of her would have been relieved if he had. She suspected part of the problem was that he hadn’t just let himself hurt, that he was bottling it all up because he thought he had to. When he looked up his eyes were glassy as if he couldn’t quite see straight through the unshed tears.
She hadn’t expected him to kiss her. His hand over hers tightening as he leant into her, lips insistent and firm against her own surprised ones.
The moment her brain had caught up with the surprise she yanked her hand out of his grip whilst shoving him back with her other. “What are you doing?” She hissed as her second attempt put some space between them.
Joseph blinked dumbly. “I... I just...” As he stammered over his response Olivia suspected he didn’t know.
She automatically took another step backwards to put some space between them as she protectively wrapped her arms around herself as she tried to straighten her own thoughts out. Not about how she felt about Joseph, she had no romantic feelings towards him, but about what she did about this. She couldn’t hide this from Sofia, but then again Joseph clearly wasn’t thinking straight and she wasn’t sure he deserved the instability that ratting him out to Sofia would cause. Then again she suspected Sofia would show some understanding, or at least, if it was someone Joseph could easily avoid again to prevent this kind of situation arising again.
Olivia swallowed as she tried to make her throat work again but the door swung open before she could make a sound. “Hey, Joe, are you coming for lunch?” Antonis asked from the doorway.
Olivia’s eyes dropped to the floor as she refused to give anything away. Joseph glanced to her before turning back to Antonis. “Yeah.” He agreed walking towards the door. Antonis stepped aside to let him out as he noticed the way Olivia was stood, refusing to meet anyone’s eye and hugging herself. It embodied a feeling he had felt many times but had never shown.
He let the door shut behind Joseph before speaking. “Olivia, are you okay?”
Olivia’s head snapped up and her eyes were wide with a combination of shock, worry and possibly fear. “I... yeah, I’m fine.” She tried to sound reassuring but under Antonis’ scrutinising stare she didn’t feel like she’d managed it.
“You should finish your lunch.” He said instead, deciding that either he was imagining it or she wasn’t willing to talk to him about it. Either way he had to respect her space.
~-x-~
Olivia hated to admit it, but she agonised for a few days over what to do about Joseph’s behaviour. She had always thought that it would be an easy thing to deal with, if a friend’s partner made a pass at someone else she had never thought of a reason she wouldn’t tell them. Now she found herself unsure if that really was the best way to deal with it.
She worried if it was because she felt guilty herself, no matter how many times she tried to tell herself she had done nothing wrong - all she had been was kind to a friend, that wasn’t an invitation! - she couldn’t quite shake the feeling that maybe she had done someting without realising it.
Eventually she had decided the best course of action was to talk to him about it and convince him that he should come clean to Sofia. It felt wrong arranging to meet up with Joseph in secret, as if she was endorsing or even encouraging his behaviour, but at the same time she couldn’t risk one of the others overhearing this conversation.
They greeted each other awkwardly as he took a seat at the table she was sat at in the pub. “I guess... you want an explanation?” Joseph asked after he took a long swig from his pint.
Olivia nodded. “I just... I want to understand. I guess.”
Joseph took another long drink. “I wish I knew.” He admitted. “I... keep ending up in these dark loops, convincing myself that I’m selfish for not letting Sofia go, for making her put up with me when I’m like this. I keep pushing her away thinking it’s a kindness yet every time I do I hate myself for it because it hurts to think of her not being there...” He took another drink. “I was in one of those cycles when you found me in the lab the other day, then suddenly you were there, all nice and understanding without invoking any of the guilt...” He sighed. “After feeling so bad for so long, I guess I just wanted to hold on to something nice.”
Olivia rubbed her temples. “I want to call you a liar.”
“I wouldn’t blame you.”
“I don’t have feelings for you, just so we’re clear.”
Joseph chuckled wryly into his drink. “Same.”
A silence fell over them as they both sipped at their drinks. “I can’t hide this from Sofia. She deserves to know.”
“I... does she?” Joseph asked unsurely. “I mean, if this is just a one off... a dumb, stupid mistake when I wasn’t thinking clearly, who does it help if I tell her?”
“Joe!” Olivia scolded. “You need to start being honest with her about how badly you’re hurting after losing your grandfather. Maybe not everything you’re feeling, but unless you open up to her you’re going to destroy what you had with her.” Joseph looked set to argue with her. “You’re wrong about not putting her through this. If she was hurting what would you do to make her feel better again?”
“Anything she needed.”
“Exactly. She’s willing to do the same for you because she loves you. Don’t throw that away because of your demons.” Olivia sighed. “Don’t make her decisions for her.”
“You make it sound so easy.”
“Then I’ll make it even easier. Either you tell her, or I will.”