The sound of several noisy kids outside the window wakes her up and for several long seconds, Andrea Battle doesn't know just where in the hell she is. She's facedown on a strange pillow and this certainly doesn't look like her place; the colors are darker than the earth tones she prefers and it's far too organized – trying to remember what happened the night before doesn't result in anything except a headache and vague recollections of some very erotic dreams, but then she slides her hands out to push herself into a sitting position and her fingers brush warm skin.

Carefully looking over to her left she's treated to the somewhat startling sight of a man's broad, muscular back. Oh, shit. Who'd I go home with last night? Andrea sits up slowly, trying not to jostle her sleeping bedmate – whoever he is – and racks her brains for the answer she needs. Okay, where was I? I went to see Slim and then Hopper ditched me to go out with Rita so I had to go to Ernie's retirement party by myself… but who else was there? Her answer comes suddenly when the man in whose bed she's sitting naked decides to roll over onto his back with a sigh. Omigod.

Chad Shelten lays sprawled out beside her, still sound asleep and looking like he doesn't have a care in the world besides trying to make her life a living hell. Oh, no. I didn't. Just…noooooo, she thinks hysterically. Andrea tries to rein in the impending panic attack; having one now would only wake him up, and then instead of just dealing with a nude IA sergeant who is fast asleep, she'd have to deal with a nude IA sergeant who is fully awake… and who might have rather specific ideas on what to do with an equally as nude Narcotics detective. Not like you minded last night when both of you were naked, a traitorous voice in her head sing-songed. "I was drunk," she whispers fiercely to the voice, "so shut up." The voice attempts to say something raunchy about the way Shelten had shut her up the night before, but Andrea puts a rather speedy stop to that.

Her clothes are spread all around the room, mingled with his and just that small reminder of how much of those clothes he's not wearing makes her look at him again. Jesus. How big is he? She can't stop her hand from sneaking over to twitch aside the sheet and her eyes widen appreciatively. Oh. That big. If Andrea were the type of person to say, "holy moley," she would probably pick this time to say it. But she can't sit around gawping at what she was thoroughly enjoying just a few hours past, because she has clothes to gather up and a house to creep out of without waking him up.

The bed frame creaks noisily as she shifts her weight in an attempt to climb down, and she freezes automatically but Shelten just sleeps on. Finally reaching the floor, Andrea tip toes around in search of her clothes, halting and balancing on one foot when at one point the big IA sergeant seems to be truly waking up. When he begins to snore with the intensity of a chainsaw cutting through granite, she can't help but give him another incredulous look – no wonder he's divorced, if this is what Rita had to put up with night after night!

Hurriedly pulling on whatever she can find – her panties have apparently gone AWOL – she turns to glare at the object of last night's departure from sanity and notices that one of Shelten's outflung arms is resting directly on her purple and black tiger stripe thong. There's no way I'm leaving that here so Big Boy can have a souvenir. It's nearly torturous to have to tip toe back over to him, but finally she's right beside him and her thong is nearly within her grasp. Andrea plucks at it with her fingertips, trying to ease it out from underneath an extremely well-developed bicep and what kind of woman would she be if she didn't just take a small moment to appreciate the corded muscle and the dusting of freckles on his skin that, if memory served her correctly, she was licking not too long ago?

Andrea finally pulls the thong out from under him and after starting to tuck it into her back pocket, turns back to frown down at him a final time…and finds herself looking right into a pair of beautiful, highly amused blue eyes. "Good morning."

With a startled yelp, Andrea yanks her hand from her pocket and turns to run away – after a panicked fumble for the doorknob, she hits the screen door with a crash and hotfoots it down the steps. She has no idea where her car is, but lack of transportation isn't going to stop her escape so she simply runs as fast as she can to get some distance between her and her drunken mistake. Unfortunately, she fails to see the child's baseball bat that's been discarded until the last minute and as Andrea is falling onto her face, she curses the day she ever met Ernie.

"Ow!" Andrea jerked awake to find herself facedown…somewhere, and it was dark. When had it gotten dark? "What the…?" She tried to roll over to see where she was when a light turned on and a very familiar face was squinting down at her.

"Andy? What the hell're you doing down there?"

She flailed a moment in alarm before remembering. "Chad?"

Chad blinked at her sleepily. "You fall out of bed again? C'mon back up." He reached a hand down to her and she scrambled up, feeling like an idiot.

"I had the strangest dream…"

He yawned and turned the light back off. "Tell me in the morning." Chad flung an arm around her and snuggled close, falling asleep almost instantly while she glared at the digital alarm clock which read 11:48.

fin