We've Talked the Whole Night Through
By MAC
The sound started as the elevator doors parted. It was a cheerful whistle, upbeat, catchy. Nathan, who'd just poured a cup of boiling water onto a bag of Tazo Chai, looked up and blinked. He'd been about to call out to Josiah, see if he needed a second cup of coffee. He stared and forgot to close his mouth.
Buck was hunched over his desk's open, deep file drawer, where he could study the latest issue of Hustler while slurping some of Vin's much milked-down coffee. He twisted his neck around to look. His body slowly followed as the swivel chair automatically corrected for his movement. Drops of milk-white coffee dripped from his lower lip onto his arm as he craned his neck to better see.
JD, half a cruller still hanging from his mouth, looked up wide-eyed from his computer station. He popped up and attempted to tap Vin on the shoulder where he stood working over at the copier, but his finger missed and he jabbed Tanner in the back at an awkward angle without even knowing it - his eyes had never left the doorway.
Where Ezra stood. Very briefly. Dressed to perfection in a dove-gray suite and pale gray shirt, with white tie, the man knew how to make an entrance. Today, though, instead of shuffling in, one hand full of a Starbuck's latte, the other tilting a folded open Wall Street Journal, leather fold case tucked under one arm, Ezra danced into the room. Singing.
He wasn't smiling so much as glowing. "Good Morning!" He spun on one flexed footpad, "Good Morning!" He dropped onto the edge of Nathan's empty desk and looked seriously at a gaping Buck, "We've talked the whole night through!" he warbled, tapping Buck on the tip of the nose with his index finger. Buck's now crossed eyes tried to follow Ezra's speeding body.
Ezra leapt back up to his feet and raised his newspaper high, arm straight up at a steep angle, and sang on, "Good morning, Good morning --- to you!"
By now Josiah, who'd been grinning and watching, was rising to his substantial height and strolling over toward Ezra who was swooping back and forth from desk to desk as he sang. Josiah met him and leaned in to add a second voice, just as Ezra went on, "It's great to stay up late! Good morning," the two men turned, grinning like fools at each other, and chorused on, "Good morning, good morning --- to you!" and shook hands, bowing over them.
Tanner plopped himself down on top of JD's desk nearby, shaking his head. When the men paused in their impromptu duet, he tilted his head to the side as if better to see their world. Buck stood up now, brushing the spilled drops of milk-coffee off his lap and laughing. "Ezra! Josiah! Wha--" He never got to finish because the men nodded to each other and Ezra dimpled as he spun around, Josiah following his lead, and back to back, they sung toward the ceiling now:
"When the band began to play
The sun was shinin' bright.
Now the milkman's on his way,
It's too late to say goodnight.
So, good mornin', good mornin'!
Sunbeams will soon smile through,
Good mornin', good mornin', to you!"
Chris Larabee, Team 7 leader, had joined the audience by now, standing in the doorway of his office, leaning there on one raised arm, smiling an almost secretive smile at the antics of his team. Nathan emerged from the break room, tea mug cradled in his hands, shaking his head, a smile cracking right across his dark face like the sun rising. Near Vin, JD stuffed the rest of his pastry in his mouth and stood with chipmunk-cheeks, masticating madly, bursting with corked questions and 'what's the joke?' eyes.
Josiah, eyes lost in the wide toothy grin on his face, soloed, "It's great to stay up late! Good mornin', Good mornin' to you."
Ezra tipped two fingers to an invisible hat brim, spun away from him and tap danced ('what the hell, when did he learn to tap dance?' was on more than one mind at this point) down the center aisle of desks, right up to Larabee. There he skidded to a halt, nearly resting against the taller man. He brushed down the lapels on the blond's black leather suit jacket and smiled up into warm hazel eyes, singing in a more subdued, nearly bedroom voice, " We've gabbed the whole night through. Good morning, good morning to you." Breathless, green eyes sparkling, he beamed up at Chris, still holding the twin lapels tightly.
Larabee stood up a bit from his lean, dropped his arm down around Ezra's shoulders to his waist, and looked over Ezra's shoulder into the main room of the ATF Team 7 offices. "Too much coffee," he said with a straight face to the room in general, and then smiled slightly, before bending his head down toward Ezra's raised face, and turning, drew the smaller man into his office, his body concealing Standish's as he ushered the man within. The door swung shut part way, and then was thumped closed with what sounded like the heel of someone's foot.
Josiah hummed the tune that he and Ezra had been singing, and sank back down into his desk chair with a contented smile, hands clasped behind his neck as he tipped the chair back and dropped his feet on the corner of the desk. Buck watched him, then laughed aloud. "Whoo-ee, Josiah! That was one helluva performance you two just put on!"
Sanchez, whose eyes were closed with a blissful look on his face, cracked open one pale blue eye and said to the room at large, "Debbie Reynolds. Gene Kelly. Donald O'Connor."
"That what that was about?" Nathan ambled over, still smiling, and shook his head. "Old movie?"
"WONDERFUL old movie!" Josiah answered, closing his single opened eye with a sigh, clearly lost in memories.
Vin whacked JD on the back and the young man coughed out the remnants of his pastry that hadn't quite made it down. Dunne hacked and scratched out, "I didn't know Ezra could dance!"
"Or sing!" Vin chuckled.
"In the morning!" Buck added, tossing his stuffed frog at JD's head with another laugh.
"After 'talking the whole night through'?" Nathan asked, settling at his desk and placing his tea mug just so.
Josiah opened both eyes suddenly and turned to face their leader's closed door. Everyone else caught his sudden move and followed his line of sight.
The silence lasted several beats.
"You think?" Nathan asked, askance.
"Who woulda thought." JD dropped into his seat and spun in his chair before slowing it to refocus on that closed door.
"Lot can happen in a night." Buck rubbed his hands together and winked at Vin. "That old dog!"
"But if all they did was talk." Vin squinted at the door.
"And Ezra's chipper as a little rooster this mornin'," Nathan added leaning back in his own chair and taking a sip of the herbal tea now that it had cooled.
Josiah smiled benignly at the others. "Then I guess they are having a good morning in there," and he closed his eyes again and began to hum. After a moment, the others joined in.
--- end ---
Singin' in the Rain Soundtrack Lyrics
Artist: Debbie Reynolds, Gene Kelly & Donald O'Connor Lyrics
Song: GOOD MORNING Lyrics
Kathy: Good mornin',
Cosmo: Good mornin'!
Don: We've talked the whole night through,
Kathy: Good mornin'
Kathy, Don & Cosmo: Good mornin' to you.
Good mornin', good mornin'!
It's great to stay up late,
Good mornin', good mornin' to you.
Cosmo: When the band began to play
The sun was shinin' bright.
Don: Now the milkman's on his way,
It's too late to say goodnight.
Kathy, Don & Cosmo: So, good mornin', good mornin'!
Sunbeams will soon smile through,
Good mornin', good mornin', to you,
Kathy: And you, and you, and you!
Good morning,
Good morning,
We've gabbed the whole night through.
Good morning, good morning to you.
Don & Cosmo: Nothin' could be grander than to be in Louisiana
Kathy, Don & Cosmo: In the morning,
In the morning,
It's great to stay up late!
Good mornin',
Good mornin' to you.
Don & Cosmo: It might be just a zippy
If you was in Mississipi!
Kathy: When we left the movie show
The future wasn't bright
But tame is gone
The show goes on
And I don't wanna say good night
Don & Cosmo: So say, Good Mornin'!
Kathy: Good Mornin'!
Kathy, Don & Cosmo: Rainbow is shining through
Kathy: Good Mornin'!
Don & Cosmo: Good Mornin'!
Kathy: Bon Jour!
Don & Cosmo: Bon Jour!
Kathy: Buenos Dias!
Don & Cosmo: Buenos Dias!
Kathy: Buon Giorno!
Don & Cosmo: Buon Giorno!
Kathy: Guten Morgen!
Don & Cosmo: Guten Morgen!
Kathy, Don & Cosmo: Good morning to you.
Waka laka laka wa
Waka laka laka wa...
Ole, toro, Bravo!