There was nothing worse than a slow day at work--except a day that wasn't particularly slow unless you were her. It didn't take two to meet with the informant and Bellaire had already volunteered to be the one to go. This left Lex back at the office with a whole lot of paperwork and waiting time before he got back and they could proceed forward.

Unfortunately, paperwork never appealed to this Auror and while she was fully conscious of the fact she would HAVE to get it all done at some point, it was going to have to be one of those better late than never moments. Until then, Alexa would content herself with knocking the snot out of this punching bag in a bid to relieve some of the tension that was slowly building inside her.

With any luck Tyler would come back with some case breaking information and a prisoner or two. If she couldn't tag along, the least he could do was give her some fresh meat to interrogate for a few hours down in the holding cells.

Between the two of them, whoever it was would have very little incentive NOT to talk.

Not so bright and very early on a Tuesday morning, Benzi found himself in his training gear and staring at the treadmill with distaste. Emma had been particularly difficult this morning, he'd disagreed with his mother over the weekend, his report last week needed a complete rewrite and on top of it all, he'd found out that Suri had been lying to them for a year.

What fun.

What utter fun.

Grumbling, he decided to ditch his regular workout routine and went instead for the weights. Placing the regular safety charms only out of habit, the twenty two year old put blared some heavy wrock through his earphones and settled in on the bench, intending on shutting out the world with sheer determination.

Benzi Rider wasn't the only one who decided to give up on sleep and hit the gym. Evangeline had been restless since before the sun had come up. Deciding it wasn't worth it to just lay there, she gave her cat some attention and then slipped into her workout clothing before flooing to the Ministry.

She didn't necessarily expect anyone to be at the gym this early, but she wasn't surprised by who she discovered on the weight bench. He had his music on, she noticed, and knowing Benzi, it was probably loud and obnoxious. Would he notice her? He looked pretty focused.

Quietly stepping past equipment, Evangeline walked up behind Benzi, standing over him and casually watching him work. Then she reached down and pulled a bud out of his ear.

"Need a spotter?"

Leon was trying to work up a good sweat and keep his mind off of things... The nineteen year old was standing in a corner by the punching bag, wrapping his hands in tape as he took a breath and clenched his fists.

The former Ravenclaw's mind was working a million miles an hour as he faced the punching bag..

Thump, thump.. thwack..

Two jabs and a left hook sent the punching bag into motion, and the grey eyed boys feet were starting to jump around a little as he kept hitting the bag.. Left hook, jab, jab, right hook..

For awhile the punches were pretty rhythmic, Leon was getting into a good pattern and for several minutes all that was heard was just heavy breaths and the punching bag being hit around. However as the boys mind started to wander, his punches started to get harder.. Until there were no more jabs, just outright wailing on the poor punching bag.

Finally he stopped, and leaned his head on the bag, gulping for air..

Aside from the usual spending Christmas with her family back home, Bryony figured she’d really not had a holiday at all. Work never stopped when one was in the YATI program, and she hadn’t officially unenrolled from university either. Therefore most of the brief holiday from work had been taken up with all of that, and now she was back. For another year of training, and she had followed the sound of someone in the exercise room more out of curiosity than anything else. She doubted a criminal had infiltrated Level Two only to work out after all, and as she’d stepped through the doorway, that hunch seemed to be verified. Point one for the YATI.

She’d heard rumors of a newbie, too, and also seen the memo. That didn’t change the amusement to find her former dueling partner from her visit to Hogwarts the previous term in the room, and she’d leaned slightly against the wall next to the door as she watched him wail in the punching bag. “Who won the battle?,” she said softly, her Scottish accent rather noticeable in the silence of the room once he’d stopped. It had looked rather like both had made their point known.

Leon was panting as he leaned against the bag, sweat dripping down his forehead as the exercise had taken its toll. But had it helped clear his troubled mind? That remained to be seen.

He was pulled from his thinking though as he heard a voice speak and he turned around to see.. His dueling partner from last year at Hogwarts! He smiled and wiped the sweat off his forhead with the edge of his white shirt. "I'm not exactly sure, I think he had an edge in the end. " The grey eyed boy responded with a smile.

"It's nice to see you again. " He said with a smile..

If anything, there was always the possibility that she ought to warn him that he shouldn’t exhaust himself this early into his training. He’d get enough of a workout without going into battle with an unwitting punching bag, although Bryony wasn’t about to stop him either. It was oddly an interesting observation moment, even more than what she’d learned about him from their duel over a year ago. Being an Auror wasn’t all physical after all. Reading people was also a useful skill, and she did try to learn where she could.

There had been a bit of a wry smile on her face as he’d noticed her, anyway. “I can see that. Maybe we should have warned you that objects aren’t always as innocent as they seem here,” she replied, hoping he understood the undercurrent of amusement in the whole statement. As far as she knew, the exercise equipment wasn’t actually sentient, but then she also wouldn’t put it past some of her superiors to play a trick like that one of these days. It paid to keep on her toes, and now she was realizing that technically she was his superior now.

It was an interesting thought. “Same.”

While one could argue (or... well... it wasn't really an argument, because it was totally true) that a skilled application of magic was the most important aspect of working on the Magical Law Enforcement Squad, maintaining physical fitness was pretty high on the list too. Active job and all that. It was lucky, really, that they had the exercise room here on level two. Time away from work was both precious and limited, and Jake spent most of it fawning over his wife and children, afraid as he was of depriving any of them even a moment of attention that they might want or need.

But here, at work, Jake could easily set aside some time in his breaks to work on that whole physical fitness thing. It felt great, too. Even back when he had played Quidditch at Hogwarts, Jake had been terrible at keeping himself in shape, and was never really much of an imposing figure, not until his seventh year. Now, though, almost twenty years on, he often felt more invigorated than he ever had back then, and he found that the exercise was good for the health of his mind, as well as his body.

Today was one of the days where his family's weekly schedule meant he found himself at work much earlier than he needed to be. Torn between getting a much-needed head start on some dreaded paperwork and heading for the exercise room, Jake had opted for the latter, changed into his freshly laundered workout clothes, and made a beeline for the treadmill. As usual, the run got his blood pumping, and gave him some time to really process his thoughts. By the time he stepped off of the treadmill and started wiping the sweat from the back of the neck with his towel, he had 1. formulated a plan of action for one of the particularly troubled kids he mentored, 2. figured out how to approach a work-related sensitive matter in the near future, and 3. decided to get his kids (even little Ezra... three wasn't too young, right?) into some sort of kids' sports... things. Those kids had so much energy, it was actually a little terrifying.

Jake glanced at the clock on the wall. He still had plenty of time before he needed to meet with the rest of the MLES for the morning briefing, time he fully expected to spend with the punching bag over in the corner. First, though: water. Hydration. All that stuff. While he drank, Jake consciously reminded himself to take it easy. No point in destroying himself for a workout before his actual workday had even started.

Fathers were extremely complicated creatures. Ivy had received an unplanned ambush of a visit from her own the night before and her head was still spinning. The whole dance between him being proud of her for going out on her own, and feeling like she could've done just as well in the family business, left her feeling guilt she didn't want or need. What she needed was to focus, and there was only one way to help with that before a work day.

Early and dressed in her workout gear, the security officer shouldered her way into the exercise room and scanned the place as was a habit of hers. "Morning." The man on the treadmill received a nod of the head in greeting as the witch moved towards the punching bag.

Yes, magic was something that she used most in her job, but she'd never not prefer the contact. A good hit could do wonders to boost your mood.

Oh. Another human. Hopefully.

"Good morning," Jake replied politely enough, raising his hand in a sort of awkward half-wave - mostly it was awkward this sort of stuff still took a lot of conscious effort (though he was a little better at it these days) but also because she had already started moving off to her destination which made the wave a little redundant.

Ahem. Right, water. As he had planned, Jake quickly rehydrated, but when he turned towards the punching bag, he saw that his colleague had headed that way too. Sure, he COULD have just found another piece of apparatus to move onto, but... well, sometimes it was pretty therapeutic to really lay into an inanimate object in a healthy, productive way.

Soooooooo... he joined her. At the punching bag. But not AT the punching bag, more like he hung back a bit and leaned against the wall instead, hopefully unobtrusively. "..... I'm pretty sure productivity at work has gone up by at least thirty percent since they brought this thing in."

??? Small talk ???

Ivy used her teeth to secure her second boxing glove and then cracked a smile. "I would've thought thirty-five percent at the very least." She grounded her feet and threw a punch experimentally, then another. "What with the stress relief keeping people present and preventing them from hexing each other. It was a genius addition, really." And it made her job that much easier.

"I'm Ivy. Security." He'd seen her around, she was sure. She'd seen him.

There was only one thing to be done when the people you wanted to pop one were technically under the protection of Law Enforcement and no longer technically punching bags. That was the worst part about apprehending and bringing persons of interest back to Level 2, all the protocol that was required at that point.

Out on the field, everyone got in a few knocks and you could sum it up to the product of a struggle. That was when she got out most of her frustration and adrenaline making it the most disappointing thing ever when this bloke came in willingly--even ASKING for the promise he wouldn't be disfigured.

What a wuss.

Her part done in the detaining was over and with him waiting for his lawyer to get there...Lex wouldn't leave herself in the way of such temptation. Until THAT bloke got here, she would leave him in his cell and come get in a few with the punching bag. This was more therapeutic than most gave it credit for being.

Perhaps she should have gotten one for two of her apartments--y'know, for when Emm decided it was a "NO" kind of day.

Only a few more months and he would be a full-fledged Auror. Frankie was counting down the days, all while keeping up with training and getting a better grip on the whole dad thing (now that Hady was pregnant again). There were some days he felt that the training was easier. Dark wizards didn't need diaper changes -- and Merlin knew that the latter was the worst.

But the absolute worst thing that could happen involved tagging along on a mission with one of the Aurors and coming back empty handed because the crook decided to move shop elsewhere. There hadn't even been a big showdown, no spells casted, no punches or side-kicks. Just showing up at the scene to be nothing but disappointed and left needing to hex or punch something.

Needing to get the unused adrenaline out of his system, the blond made a dash for the exercise room the moment the team made it back to the Ministry. The punching bag had his name on it.

Or, rather, it had Cambridge's on it first. "One of those days, Lex?"

It helped, y'know? Picturing the form of the man now over in the holding cell. She found it provided enough incentive to give the punching bag everything she had. By the time she was done, she was sure her arms would be of no real use to her but that might have been for the best--for him anyway.

Punch after punch left her feeling lighter, as if she'd been unloading everything with each blow. She didn't care what anyone said, this was hella cathartic. Why didn't she do this more often?

"You could say that again." Her arms didn't stop moving, even with the appearance of company, but her attention was now divided. Lex gave the bag a particularly hard punch. "Don't you just hate when they give in easily?" IWhack! Whack! Whack! "I mean, where's the challenge in that? All that time and effort for no," WHACK, "payoff." Phew. The Head Auror paused to move her shoulders about a bit, feeling them growing a little stiff before fully turning to face him.

"Anything interesting in the field today?"

He looked like he was ready for his own workout, they could help each other out probably.

Before she even responded to him, he could already tell what her answer would be. One didn't punch at that bag like that just for the fun of it. Not that Frankie was judging her for it. After all, he was here to do the same thing.

In fact, he was quite empathetic. And, to be totally honest, thankful that he wasn't the punching bag right now. Whoever ticked her off was lucky that he wasn't on the receiving end of those fists.

All he could do was nod in agreement. There wasn't much to be said about the lack of a good challenge during the job. Without it, they might as well just be sitting their desks doing mindless paperwork.

He couldn't help put roll his eyes at her question to him. "Not really, unless you find an abandoned site interesting," Frankie grunted. "The mission was a waste. The dude ran off before we even got there. Huge let down. Damn coward." Thinking about it made him clench his fists, unused adrenaline crying to be released.

"Merlin's beard that's arguably worse." She conceded, a slight wrinkle in her nose as she considered her own feelings should she have shown up and the man proven to be absent. "I'll tell you one thing, you've got better self restraint than me. Reckon there'd be a large hole through something by now if that'd been my case." If there was one thing that left her cross, it was waste--that and idiots but right now Frankie had mentioned waste giving it a little more clout on her list of "can't stands".

Alexa flexed her wrists to remove the tension that had wound itself tight in them. "Give it a go, you likely need this more than I do." She said, giving a nod toward the bag that still swung slightly even after the last punch had been given.

She moved to begin tightening the wraps around her wrists and hands, positive they'd somehow loosened in all that punching. "YATI missions aren't even that exciting to begin with, then you go and add something like that. I wanna say the big leagues will be better but it's more filled with drawn out cases and slippery sods that consume most of your waking hours." Don't get her wrong, she liked that the high profile and often highly complex cases were left for the Aurors but she didn't like everything that ended up needing to go into it.

Interviews with people you didn't really care to talk to, files upon files you had to sift through with a fine toothed comb, evidence logging. She just wanted to get to the part with the actual busting. Storming underground cells, breaking trades. You know, the good stuff.

"What've you got, another year of YATI-dom?" Less than a year? It was a kinda hard keeping up with all the YATIs. Before Browne left she asked them to keep the YATIs alive, that was enough work--considering everything else they had to do--without figuring out what year they may or may not have been in too.

He shrugged at first, but then couldn't help but grin when she said that he had better self-restraint than she did. "Need to remember that I'm still in the YATI programme. Need to keep my temper under control, y'know." Otherwise, yes, there would have been a hole in something courtesy of yours truly.

Frankie wasted no time to get to punching the bag when Alexa stepped aside. WHACK. WHACK. WHACK, WHACK, WHACK.

The blond couldn't help but snort at her comment about YATI missions not being all that exciting. There was truth in that statement. "Tell me about it. I'm just waiting for what is meant to be a simple mission to escalate into something else." Wishful thinking, it was. WHACK. "Actually show what I'm capable of." WHACK, WHACK. And there was another loud WHACK when she mentioned the drawn out cases. Ugh.

"Yeah, I'm in my last year of it now. On the cusp of graduating to Auror status." Along with a bunch of others in the programme. WHACK. Beads of sweat were beginning to fall down his face.

"Oh yeah, they take that sort of thing real serious around here. That psych eval you do before you get to be a proper Auror--lie if you have to. Those blokes are finicky about everything." She should know. Failed it the first time for not giving the answers they'd have felt more comfortable hearing. So she wasn't a knight in shiny armour out to defend the innocent and the weak. So she happened to be in this field for the thrill and the way it made her feel alive. What was so terribly wrong with that? She still turned up for work each day, didn't she? The bad guys still got stopped, didn't they?

There was no need to ask about his level of frustration. The punching bag's blows answered it all. Couldn't blame him either, YATI had been a very frustrating time for her.

"I remember those days, walking Diagon Alley on a random patrol and hoping someone would...I dunno...just accidentally drop dead. Or a walk around the Ministry on patrol and praying to Merlin a dark wizard would break in." She sighed wistfully, not at all missing those days that were so confining. "Never. Happened. Ever. It was like the universe was trying to spite me."

Lex had no doubts she'd probably done terrible things in another life, but nothing bad enough to warrant boring patrols when the sky was literally the limit in this career field.

Ah, yeah, last year. "Good luck on those finals. Wizarding Law was a pain." Failed that one too. So her Auror career had been off to a rough start....might have been less rough if she'd bothered to READ but Merlin who even had time for that???

"Duly noted," he responded with a nod of his head. Not that was common knowledge Frankie didn't know already. It was pretty obvious that those in charge wanted people around who weren't going to knock someone cold just for the heck of it. A level head was needed for this job apparently. Which was something that he had ... but sometimes emotion took centre stage.

WHACK. "You said it. Bit boring really. And they're not very keen on you snooping around Knockturn either without having the right people there to supervise." At this the YATI rolled his eyes. It wasn't like he was going to burst in to the pub down there and blast away at people. He could be subtle. After all, he was an Animagus. Crows around here weren't that uncommon.

WHACK. WHACK.

At the mention of finals, Frankie stepped away from the punching bag, allowing Alexa another go at it if she wanted. "Thanks. I'm going to need all the luck I can get on that one in particular. I failed History of Magic at Hogwarts, so I doubt I'll be any better at Wizarding Law." Even with Hady helping him study up for it, he wasn't so confident in himself. "Thank Merlin there's other, more important, finals that are taken into consideration."

Lex nodded, taking up her position before the punching back again, waiting for it to swing back in her direction. The psych eval had been a strange concept for her, mostly because she'd been raised not to lie--why bother when the truth could often be as satisfying and as damaging? The truth had served her well in her tactless life until she got to the MLE where they apparently took public safety really serious and didn't wanna give just anyone permission to serve. WHACK! What a load of Hogwash.

"Yeah, no kidding. Legend chewed me out once for attempting it. Said I didn't understand the severity of the situation, since Vivi had just been attacked down there," WHACK! WHACK! WHACK! "and got messed up pretty badly. I guess he had a point but at the time it still felt like a crime to be put on only the most mundane of missions." YATIs literally had the shortest end of everything. They sat on the floor til they earned a table as an Auror. They did Ministry Patrols and simple ones out in London that couldn't possibly yield anything. They seldom were allowed to tag along when cases got too big. Was it any wonder some of them went power hungry the moment they hit the big leagues?

"Desk duty's the absolute worse though, next to maternity leave." I can't remember which I hated more."[/b] Wait. Not true. WHACK! Pregnancy sucked. Knowing you had to sit out and that it wasn't even because you botched something out in the field. Merlin it was hard to justify. Speaking of, "How's the rugrat?"

Lex pulled a face at the mention of History of Magic. It hadn't been her best either. Understatement. "Memory potions. Don't ask me if they're allowed but all those laws and statutes," that she didn't care for or always follow, "it could come in real handy."

The moment Alexa started punching, Frankie felt inclined to take another step back. This one was feisty. And probably needed more space. Who knew when she would opt out of punching for kicking. He himself had been building up to it.

"Understandable. But ... isn't that the kind of thing we should be exposed to? Gotta know what's out there before we get thrown into the big leagues, you know? Can't go from kiddie pool to the ocean overnight and expect to stay afloat for very long." In other words, he wanted more intense missions. Ones that didn't always end up being a disappointment. He wanted to get his hands dirty. Even if that meant getting a gnarly scar or two. At least it'd be quite a story to tell to the kids in the future.

Speaking of kids, the break from disappointing missions and finals (he mentally took note of that nudge about the memory potions) was welcomed. "Nova is doing just fine. Has been walking and getting into everything she can get her hands on," he said, not too terribly upset by it. She was just a little thing.

Then, more of an after thought, he added, "And Hady is expecting again."

"Don't ask me." She grunted, giving the punching bag a particularly hard whack. "I'm not the one who makes the rules and I'm not the one trying to make them either." Even as Head Auror, she was pretty sure that wasn't her jurisdiction and she was fine with that. "Left up to me, I'd have gone on absolutely everything I could've." But she wouldn't forget that left up to herself she would have probably died a half a dozen times before getting the Auror badge too. Some things just took time and experience which had never sat well with the former Gryffindor.

It was weird, y'know? While Frankie spoke about his daughter walking around insinuating it was a recent development, Lex could only ....sorta remember Emmerson before she became mobile. Perhaps because she'd just always been trying to get into things the woman would rather she DIDN'T. Kid had been a holy terror since day one "Yeah? How old is she no--another one?" That one...that one definitely got her to stop punching.

Lex's hands fell loosely to her side as she shook them a few times to regain some feeling in them. "Sometimes I forget people actually want children, and a couple of them while they're at it."

Don't get her wrong, she adored her kid--but she didn't like kids, and didn't want another one. The one she had was ENOUGH. Maternity leave again? Labour again? Diapers and wailing (Okay Emm still wailed, the spoiled little monster that she was but it was different) and oh gawd potty training again???? "I take it you're excited." Most everyone else she knew that were expecting children were. She and Dora may have been the only exceptions.

He was off the clock now, which typically meant flooing home and reheating whatever it was he had made in bulk the start of the week and chase it all down with a protein shake after some kendo sparring in his private dojo within his flat...but he had been feeling too restless to return home so quickly. Too routine. Too lonely.

Not that hanging around the Ministry was particularly appealing either. Work was all right, but the Minister was always giving him these eyes that made his skin crawl and had been doing so ever since the retreat. Ruined saunas for him as well.

Setting his bag down, Ryu too no time to removing his outer layers, until he was in a tank top and tracksuit bottom, and gave the room a look over. All standard equipment, most of which he had at his place too, and pulled some tape out from the supplies to wrap his hands. He preferred it to boxing gloves. Though it was difficult to get any of this done since his skin had been to bloody itchy recently.

"You know the drill, don't touch anything." Lex nudged the door to the exercise room open with her unoccupied shoulder, the other carrying a small, obnoxiously pink and glittery back pack while she gave clear instructions to her young charge.

It'd been a long day in the office...but that was it; a day spent in the office. Her case had gone cold again, forcing her into more paperwork than any Auror's brain should've been exposed to and she needed someway of expending all that pent up energy before heading home. It was a usual enough occurrence for the young woman, hanging back after the work day was technically concluded but these days she tried to keep that to a minimum for the sake of the little blonde who marched in before her. So after picking her up from Dora's, she head back to the ministry to scratch her itch.

Lex nudged the bag into Emm's hand and ushered her over to one of the safer corners before turning to take stock of the equipment. It was then that she noticed a certain member of security already gearing up for a workout session.

"Keep this up, I may have to put a restraining order on you." Lex quipped, an easy grin slipping in place. "Or deal with you myself, the more entertaining option." Hi. She'd be joining him.