Lorraine beamed when Ben agreed to the only good things comment. Not that she expected anything else, since she was known to be quite the overachiever. Such that she often sacrificed other parts of her life in order to gain that status, but that was beside the point. She sighed briefly though when the tall fallen man made a rather corny joke; or at least what she assumed was intended as such, albeit she didn't find it too funny. "Too bad about Maddie. I never did hear the full scoop on what happened, but I liked her," she admitted thoughtfully, though oddly Lorraine hardly knew the woman. But Ben didn't need to know that.

Then all of a sudden another woman arrived to join their company; one whom Ben obviously knew. Without further ado, he introduced herself and Theo as fellow department heads.

It didn't take much for Lorraine to pick up on the woman's lack of enthusiasm. As though something was irking her, but she wasn't about to mention it Ben - let alone any guy. Lorraine didn't blame her since there was perhaps only one person she'd ever trust with her secrets. And even him still didn't know everything, but mostly one item in particularly.

Nodding politely, Lorraine took the Division Head's quite white hand - hmm why so white? - and shook it lightly. "Lorraine Brothmeister, Department Head of Magical Transportation. Pleasure to meet your acquaintance."


Though just as she released Mona's hand, Lorraine looked over towards la beauty, Ms Eloquent French lady and couldn't help but notice sadness in her expression. How could one who is of complete and utter beauty be so sad? Oh right; because she stopped being the center of attention. Whatever. That was NOT Lorraine's problem . . .

Alexa allowed a small smile to flit over her expression. So he had noticed? She'd thought he was too busy with Mrs America to notice. Sometimes she thought, he honestly didn't pay attention to any women around him. Blatant flirting got no where with him. Hilarious to watch them fail..
"I thought he was quite pleasant" She said seriously, looking down at her shoes to prevent herself from laughing.

Under Rebecca's eye, her smirk fell into a small smile. "Minister Li seems to have found this conference extremely boring" She said sympathetically, "He seemed to have provided his own entertainment" She added with a laugh.

Rebecca nodded "Unfortunately" she added to Alexa's sentence "Sorry, I don't know your name" Rebecca felt bad, she knew this woman was in the department she was in "My name is Rebecca"

Lucy looked at him in false annoyance.
"Well, if it does, that's my problem lo-" she cut off what she was about to say. She was always usuing terms like 'honey', 'love' or 'darling' mostly to annoy others when it was necessary, but now after the kiss with Jake she didn't think she should continue to call him like that.
She turned at him surprisedly when he laughed:
"What is it so funny?" she asked with a confused expression yet, smilling.

He shook his head, amused. "Nothing, I'm just really happy," he said, beaming at her. Beaming? I never beam! Something's not right with me, I'm probably coming down with something... He hadn't missed the fact that she stopped herself from using the word 'love.' Ahh well...

"Jake..." she thought about using the word 'honey', but she decided not to do it. "... you're beaming. C'mon tell me. You're happy because....?" curiosity was killing her and the fact that he didn't tell her was making her even more curious.
She didn't notice they were whispering when they should be paying attention to the stage. But Lucy's attention wasn't on the stage.

" 'Oh course." Jack said with a wink. Melanie seemed like someone he could get along with very well. Maybe perhaps create a little bit of excitement in their Division. Running his hand threw his hair sub-consciously Jack stared simply at the stage. He was determined not to say anything about their Minister. Some of the works might take it too an offense. And he had no clue of knowing if this would happen or not.

Stealing a glance at Melanie Jack chuckled. She seemed to be faking that she was annoyed at him. Yes, faking. He had grown up with enough sisters to know when a girl was really mad at you or if she was just playing around. "Nice one. But ya' acting skills lack a bit. Ya' gotta have ta' do betta to trick me. My sista's did that all tha' time." He whispered then added as an after thought "I apologize." Which he guessed was what she wanted to here. Women and girls always wanted to be right. "Se ya' didn't answer my question back, before we got interrupted. Is this ya' first job?"


Jack nodded as he listened to Angelica talk. She seemed pretty interesting. Lorraine seemed like a stuffy person to him but she didn't seem to think so. Jacinto's eyes flickered for a second. Did Angelica just say she had four children? She did not look older than himself! That was pretty young to have so many kids. "Four...tikes?" He repeated slowly. "Tha' must be a whole lotta work, ta' take care of!"

He nodded and smiled "Having limited numbers of employees can be nice sometimes though. It means that there are less names to remember! Well unless they keep changing anyway.." He laughed, smiling again when she said she had three cats and two owls "Animals are sometimes better than people. They're more forgiving if you do something they dont like. Such as accidentally shutting them in a cupboard." He laughed, remembering when he had shut his cousin in a cupboard for 3 hours. He never had really been forgiven for that. "She has a nice smile. Really pretty," he thought to himself. "I did have a few more dependable coworkers at one point... Then I was ill for a few weeks and they sort of disappeared." He laughed "I wonder where Filius went.. He was still here until about a week ago.." he thought out loud, then realised she probably had no idea who Filius was "Sorry, I tend to just sort of randomly say things sometimes.." he laughed, then smiled as he listened to her "Being confined to an office can certainly be annoying. I found that randomly spilling things everywhere just to get to walk to the store room to replace them can be interesting sometimes when the work is boring.." he probabaly just sounded crazy saying that the store room was interesting but it was better than sitting alone in an office with a huge pile of paper. "I'm glad you're enjoying it here though." He smiled and nodded "Filing is rather repetitive and its easy to get sidetracked. Being in one place for ages can be rather annoying!" He smiled, completely agreeing that moving around was better. "It's not good that the other employees working with you have just sort of vanished. Maybe you should ask the Department Head if they know where they've gone?" he suggested, knowing that vanishing employees was rather enfuriating. "And if they're leaving you to do all the work it's not fair. You dont want to end up with too much to do and getting stressed or ill because of it." He didnt think it was fair of the other employees to just leave like that. They did it all the time in his Division but then he was Division Head so if they left it was his job to find them and get them back. He didnt think that it was right for her to be left to do all the work though.

He raised his eyebrows at her and said with a mischievous smile, "Can you really not guess?" He grinned cockily and titled his head to the right, looking at her. Or she could just make me say it, he thought, that will be fun.

Glancing sideways at Jack out of the corner of her eyes Melanie realized that he had been looking at her at exactly the same moment. Quickly turning her back on him again she pretended to turn her full attention towards Angelica again. No, it wasn't going to be that easy. Although a small smile escaped her lips and flashed across her face Melanie did her best to keep concentrated on what Angelica was saying. Which wasn't exactly easy but she somehow managed to do so.

Confirming what both Jack and herself had already been saying Angelica was beginning to become more and more likable in Melanie's eyes. Those very eyes started to twinkle in amusement at the woman's observations about Miss Taylor which caused Melanie to whisper in a hushed voice, "Yes, I noticed that too. She really was shocked...and she seemed sort of embarrassed as well." It had been just hilarious to watch the woman struggling to keep the shock from her face as she had taken over the microphone. Melanie grinned at Angelica trying her best not to look in Jack's direction again. She really started to like that woman, they should go shopping or have a drink together sometime.

What? What had that guy just said about her acting skills?! Anything else he wanted to critize? Her looks maybe? Oh, right, that was impossible. Despite all that, though, Melanie still wasn't irritated by him, it wasn't possible. One simply couldn't be annoyed at someone like Jack, you just couldn't. But still, he hadn't-oh, now he had. Her lips formed a triumphant smile as she finally turned to face Jack again. Leaning a bit closer to him she whispered, her eyebrows raised to give her an innocent expression on her face, "That's all I wanted to hear."
Sitting back in her seat again she grinned at Jack while absentmindly tugging one strand of her blonde hair behind her ear. Hearing his next question Melanie looked at him with her eyebrows raised, "Yes, that's my first job. What about-oh, you said you worked with dragons, right?" She remembered their former conversation in which he had said something about that. "Wasn't that sort of dangerous?" Her eyes showed nothing but curiosity, well, and maybe a bit of concern at her last question.

Vivienne caught the bored expression on Minister Beniot's face and sighed. He looked bored just like the other ministers, but at least he did not transfigure his chair into a golden throne like the man from China. In her opinion, troupe carrying the flags was not as entertaining as French acrobats. Perhaps there was an issue with money and they had to cut costs. "If you don't mind me zaying zis, but aren't we zuppozed to be 'aving fun? Ze talk about work iz not zat fun," she said politely and smiled at Theo and Ben. She saw something on the stage that peaked her interest. "Can anyone tell me why ze chair next to ze Minister iz vacant?"

Frida gave a fun scoff, "Yeah, my animals are sooo much better than other humans. Sometimes I forget they aren't the same species as me." She rolled her eyes, "Ted and Nigel, my owls, absolutely hate each other. They had a tiff one morning in my kitchen as I was making breakfast and nearly destroyed the place. I'm sure they would have too if I hadn't stepped in to play referee." Frida gave a small sigh, "At least the cats don't have that problem. Poe just sleeps all day. Chester is the best mouser I've ever seen and Bogey...well, he's just mommy's precious little boy." She made a sort of cuddling motion with her arms. "Sleeps right over my neck at night, he's so sweet."
She gave a loud laugh as he mentioned the cupboard. "Oh, and you would know that how? If someone locked me up in a cupboard I'd clobber them!" She punched her slender hand into the other, "Whack!"
Frida shook her head, "Of course they would disappear. You think they'd miss out on a chance to take an extended vacation? When the cat's away the mice will play after all." Gosh, she had heard that expression most of her life from her mother, and her brother when he was still alive.
Frida chuckled, "Yeah, thanks for leaving me in the dark." She grinned, "It's alright, I tend to do the same thing sometimes. Kind of start rambling on about Lord knows what and get strange reactions...but that's part of the fun." Frida gave another loud laugh as Blaze told her about strategically placing objects in the room. "My goodness, you are a real character aren't you? I think it's time for a change of pace...something more exciting maybe? An outdoor career perhaps. That's what I wanted to do after I left Hogwarts after all. I'm a little too rambunctious for my own good at times. It's gotten me in an awful lot of trouble when I was attending school. What house were you in by the way?" 'If I'm going to have a conversation with someone I might as well know a little bit about them.'
"I guess I really should bring it up. We haven't gotten much done and we were working on an important case too." She felt a pang of guilt in her stomach, really, all she wanted to do was get her work done. Was that so much to ask? Frida grinned, "Well, unfortunately for me I always end up doing the bulk of the work, I'm use to it now. It's been that way since I was in school, people know I do good work so they get assignments with me and then say they don't know what to do. I'm kind of a sap sometimes, that's my weakness, I don't want to let people do poorly and get in trouble or fail." She rested her chin in her left hand, still watching Blaze.

Lili joined the crowd of employyes for the opening ceremonies. She paused to scan the room for anyone she knew. There was Blaze, her former boss, and also Vivienne, she waved in greeting to Blaze and went over to say hi to Vivienne. 'Hi, Vivienne, how are things going?' She stood quietly, taking in everyone in the room.

Warren caught glanced at Alexa just as she smiled at his comment and sighed, "Yes, well I didn't and if you hadn't got switched...." He frowned as he let his eyes dart around again falling on the Peruvian minister with a frown. I'd still like to deck him. He glanced down at Rebecca and smirked, "I'd take the American minister and her constant 'my Warren's' any day to the bored Minister Li whom you seem to have to chase after constantly. At least I know if she's gone anywhere cause I'd end up being dragged along with her."

"I am glad you makez it to zis event, Lili. Eet iz going alright," she smiled and looked at the woman. "Nozing exciting except for all of us employeez socializing."

Lili smiled at her, and walked over to say hi to Blaze. 'Hi, it's been awhile since I saw you, hows everything going?' It wasn't that long ago that she had worked in Blaze's office. It was nice to see him again.

Angelina smirked at his words.
“So much confidence, eh Mr Serio ?” It would have been more than just a little bit hard to help Belle since the only person who was allowed to be with her before the wedding was Reagan.. and maybe Bella, the previous junior undersecretary.
“Weddings are just a bunch of worries and one more excuse to spend bags of money.. well, at least they are in my opinion, I mean, people don’t need to throw a party , sign some papers and wear a ring to prove they love each other.” What was the point in getting married anyways?
Sometimes marriage only made things worst.

Angelina observed his dark eyes coming closer, oh! They were slightly bigger than what she had though.
Her both eyebrows popped up. “You could see that from your seat in the audience?” she almost, almost laughed. From the two one, or Belle was scary and everyone could see that no matter how far away from her you were, or Rico had some pretty amazing vision. “Oh, I don’t think she is scary, no. I think her always wide open blue eyes can be intimidating.. and the fact that she is always observing everyone doesn’t help..” But aside from that, Angelina thought that Clara Belle could be the smartest woman in the whole world.. but she was still a little bit silly.
Her reactions spoke from themselves.
“Ah, Reagan.. she is such a wonderful woman. I must say that it’s a enormous pleasure to have her as my boss. ” Angelina said, turning her eyes for a little while to her boss that was on the stage. It was a true pleasure to work with Reagan. But sometimes, seeing her boss always so extremely busy and working twenty-four/seven worried Angelina. “All the things she does.. she should be so much more appreciated than she is..” Sometimes Angelina even asked herself if it was really Cooper that was running the country and not Reagan.

Angelina’s right eyebrow slowly rose when he said that she wasn’t the type of person that could fake her expression well.
She honestly hoped that wasn’t true, because when you have the kind of job where you have to be polite and smile at everyone, even when you feel like ignoring everyone and go home, it wouldn’t be good if those people you have to smile to notice that your smile was a forced smile.
Angelina loved her job therefore she rarely had to put a fake smile on her lips.
“Oh, so I can not fake it.. How can you be so sure?”an interested small smile appeared on her lips.

The young woman leaned back on her seat at his next words, making a small effort not to turn her eyes to the people that were still dancing on the stage. (Seriously, that dance was taking a way much more time than it should.)
Was he trying to make her blush?
Ohh, was he trying to make her blush because he had blushed before for apparently no reason?
Whatever was the motive for his complement about her, apparently beautiful eyes, she had plenty control of herself, and that included her cheeks.
Or not…
“Well..erm..Thank you.” Angelina calmly replied, managing to keep her eyes on his, ignoring whatever was happening to her cheeks.. which she hopped was nothing. She felt extremely tempted to say what she thought about his dark brown with flecks of gold, she even opened her mouth for a second but then closed it and pressed her lips against each other to avoid say something that ,even if she wanted, she shouldn’t.
Angelina had never noticed how hard it was to keep eye contact with someone.. but it wasn’t going to be her breaking it.

Ben gave Mona a little smile and a nodd when she had been polite to the other Heads...see, that wasn't so bad now was it? He thought to himself with a small smirk. He then turned back to the French woman and looked up at the front again at the Ministers. She was right--there was a vacant seat up there. He shrugged. He honestly hadn't noticed yet. "I dunno...possibly a late arrival, or perhaps a no-show?" he wondered aloud.

"But of course," Rico replied, his trademark grin on his face. They don't call me Suave for no good reason...

But he found it very odd that she hated weddings. Weren't women the ones that were supposed to love weddings, with all the planning and the dresses and the guest lists and flowers and froo froo stuff? Sooo not Rico's style, although he did agree with her about the nonsense.

"IF I ever get married," he replied, shifting in his chair, "it would have to be a small ceremony with an awesome reception. It's all about the party anyways....and you do like parties, don't you, Miss Gilmore?" Rico raised one eyebrow, trying to refrain from smirking again. He had the feeling that the answer to that might be no.

His dark eyes were dancing now. Such fun banter they had going. "Intimidating...scary...they're the same words almost." He chuckled a little. "Perhaps you are the one who should be giving dictionary definitions."

He nodded at her description of Ms. Taylor. Sure, he believed her. Some people just had a hard-worker vibe, and the undersecretary definitely emanated that. Come to think of it...so did Angelina.....hmm.

"Well, Angelina," Rico chuckled, "I sincerely hope you aren't faking your kindness to me. I mean, if I ever start annoying you....just say the word and poof," he snapped his tan fingers, "I'll let you be. I promise. I'll even go all the way back to America."

Ahh he was definitely teasing now. Rico couldn't imagine himself going all the way back there; he had left everything and everyone behind - even Pablo had followed him here.

But enough of that, Rico had totally forgotten about what was going on with the performances. He hadn't taken his eyes off Angelina more or less since they'd started speaking. "You're welcome," he said softly, the infamous crooked smile sneaking back on his face again. Oh to see her blush - it was actually a very pretty sight. And Rico seldom got embarassed.

Except for earlier; that didn't count. He was confused and only blushed a little.

"Angelina...." Rico continued in that same soft tone, still unable to turn away from her. He wanted to say something awesome....but his brain was slightly confused by her mesmerizing eyes at the moment and he just let his sentence trail off.

Lizeth walked over to a man she recognized from the many meetings planning this event. "Rico, isn't it?" She looked around. She was surprised at how much had been achieved in so little time. "It's beautiful." She looked at all of the guests and waved at familiar faces.

Smiling Alexa nodded. She hadn't been at all impressed with his stink bomb on the eighth floor, in fact she'd thought the chinese would've had more respect. Although after Cooper's speech she wouldn't be suprised if all the minister's upped and left. Although it seemed they were taking it cordially. Maybe they'd been informed of the British ministry's incompetence of a minister. His PA was a one-woman ministry. Alexa would bet her bottom dollar she was the only brain inside the minister's office. And his wife....

She'd probably ran round half the floor looking for him and then had to persuade him to come back, a round of a applause for the woman.
"Alexa" She replied politely. She was definetely a woman she'd like to get to know.

Alexa looked at him indignantly. "If I hadn't gotten switched what?" She asked plaintedly. She smiled at Rebecca and followed Warren's glance to the minister with a smirk. She scowled as he recounter her pet name for him. Gritting her teeth together she rolled her eyes. "The peruvian minister got bored of me" She sighed and added watching Warren, "After I refused to go hiking in the peruvian mountains"

Kate walked into the room. She noticed she had a slight headache. She walked around the room looking for people from her department. She noticed Vivienne and walked over.
'Hello Vivienne, how are you?'.

Liam walked into the room and took a seat. he hoped he hadn't missed anything, he looked around to see if there was anyone he knew, he couldn't see anyone so he sat down. After sitting down he waited to see what would be happing and he also hoped some people from his division would come.

Rebecca smiled and giggled a little "Yeah, I saw her trying to pair people up"

Rebecca smiled "Nice to meet you Alexa" she nodded "He got bored of you?" she asked gasping "No-one can get bored, not with me around!" Rebecca laughed

Liam stood up and knocked into this woman "I am so sorry" he said. "My name is Liam Moiser and I'm the Gobstone Division Head"