The Architect. [The Blacklist. Donald Ressler X Oc]

The calm before the storm.

Maggie.

"You know, the last man that gave me one of these, I married him" I clipped the ID that stated with bold red letter that I was a consultant, straightening my blazer after I finished.

"Wow, are you flirting with me?" James smirked, his hands folded in front of him as we rode on the back of an FBI issued car, much like the one Don drove.

"No, I'm just saying" I smirked as I shook my head. I was in an unusual good mood that morning, nothing to do with James and everything to do with the cake I received with letters that read 'Do you still wanna be my wife?'. I just texted him the picture with the caption 'of course, you dumbass'. As of I'd ever pass on the chance to marry him again if he asked.

James had arrived one hour after that when Alma and I were cleaning the house to tell me he needed me for something. I was ashamed to say that I was the most eager to get out of the house, leave my poor daughter at my sister's house to go on some assignment for the FBI. I wondered if this had been Don's idea.

My attention was quickly caught when I entered what at first sight was the parking lot of an office building. In it, another brigade of FBI agents were waiting, one that looked like the one in charge pulled James to the side. I was left to walk the empty parking lot to give them space to talk. I noticed right away that the parking lot is clean, the bits of debris do not necessarily stick out like a sore thumb but I know the pieces I see are not the types a car would bring or the ones the general deterioration of the near columns might shed.

I look up, the ceiling is very high up, I can't see what I expect to find up there so easily, I feel someone walk next to me and without looking down I ask them for a flashlight.

"I can get you one"

"And a ladder maybe" I look down finally, finding Tanner. "Hey Tanner, I didn't know you still worked with James. Well, I didn't know James worked at all"

"Yeah, he's earned his way back to the field"

"Right. And your boss?" I pointed at him with a shake of my head.

"Ah, he's probably chewing James' ear for bringing you. He's sadly the type of guy that when he says "bring me an expert" he doesn't expect a woman, much less a pregnant one"

"What a shame" I said with a smile. Putting men with archaic thoughts in their place always tickled my fancy.

"I'll work on that ladder" he patted my shoulder as he began to walk away. I wondered if the security cameras worked and if they'd already gotten the information out of them.

James wasn't going from let me climb on the ladder, much less if it was propped on the low hanging of the ceiling and on top a van, but it did confirm my suspicions, drill holes. One of the agents nodded at me when I told him he was to look for drill holes and the width between them forming a square in the ceiling gave me some preliminary data.

James walked to me, his hand already at his waist and his gaze down, the older man, his superior, had a scowl on his face.

"Ms. Ressler-"

"You have a 4 by 4 built safe room in the first floor, the holes in the ceiling tell me one of two things, you're going to have a fire inside of it, or the floor of the vault blown out to make the contents fall from the parking lot, if there's traces of explosives, then that tells me that the wall was assembled at the premises. The walls maybe be made out of concrete with a reinforced steel exterior, but the top and the bottom are always soft spots and entry points in cases like this, since the building doesn't really approve the deconstruction of an office space to accommodate a vault. Let me guess, you have a class five vault door upstairs"