The night sky, in its vague fluorescent haze, was beautiful. Velma knew it was probably over polluted and otherwise bad for the environment, but still, it was a lovely violet color at this time of day. She did her best to shut down the worrying part of her brain about this- it had enough to worry about already. Besides, she was trying to look at the night sky as a break from work. It had been a long day already.<br/><br/>She had just emerged from a small coffee shop- one of those get your order and go places- with two coffees and a large muffin with an inadvisable number of chocolate chips. After pushing past a crowd of pedestrians, she broke through to a tall skeleton of a man leaning against the cracked brick of the coffeehouse. Lance had opted to take a smoke break instead of go inside with her, although she suspected it had more to do with a desire to be alone with his thoughts than to smoke.<br/><br/>“One large black coffee for me, one large black coffee for you,” Velma said, nudging him with the drink. “Careful, it’s from a fresh batch.”<br/><br/>He blinked at her after a moment, like he was waking up again. Then he took the coffee and, apparently ignoring her warning, took a large swallow. Velma watched with some alarm as his adam’s apple bobbed as he forced it down his throat. Lance’s mouth puckered as he squinted at the sky. “That is hot,” he remarked. Velma thought his eyes might have been watering. “Why do I drink this, again?”<br/><br/>“To stay awake through long hours?” Velma suggested.<br/><br/>“I’m not even tired,” he said, frowning.<br/><br/>“Well, we’re not all machines like you, Lance,” Velma said, reaching inside the brown paper bag to remove the muffin. “Want some of this?”<br/><br/>He waved a hand at her. Velma was thankful he was at least thoughtful enough to not let it be the hand holding the cigarette. “Not hungry. Thanks, though,”<br/><br/>Velma had already known the answer, but it made her feel better to ask. She leaned against the wall beside him and took a cautious sip of her coffee and grimaced- it was hot. Still, it wasn’t impossibly hot, so she proceeded after taking a bite out of her muffin. The two stood in relative silence, working on their drinks- or at least Velma did. Lance seemed to mostly just hold his.<br/><br/>Finally, he ground out his cigarette on the wall behind him, then chucked the butt into a nearby trashcan. “We should probably walk back,” he remarked.<br/><br/>Velma made an mmph sound around a bite of muffin. She swallowed forcefully, then said, “to do more paperwork? Not exactly in a hurry.” Still, though, she stuck her unfinished muffin back into the bag and folded the top. She wasn’t exactly hungry, but she could at least attempt to make Lance eat something later. The two began the walk back to the police station. It wasn’t far, maybe three blocks or so, but Velma wasn’t exactly in a hurry.