A.N. Yeah, yeah, I know I said the next thing I wrote would be the last chapter of Matters of Trust. But that's going to be pretty long, longer than I can write in the time I've allotted myself for this, 'cause if you saw my stack of homework for this weekend…GAH.
Anyway, sorry about that. So here's a little something for lule-bell, who suggested it. Don't own, don't claim credit for, please don't sue, you know the drill.
Oh, and 'purfled' means "short-winded, especially in consequence of being too lusty."
"Flippercanorious," Eames says as their perp is led weeping from the interrogation room.
Bobby starts, nearly bumping his head. "What?"
They've been working together for a few weeks now, and he still hasn't figured her out. She lets him take the lead, but… It's the smirk, he thinks. That subtle, knowing smirk that gives him the unnerving feeling that she's just solved the case all on her own, but has decided to play along with his over-the-top antics for her personal amusement.
"It means 'elegant.'"
"I…I know that…"
"Of course you do." A tinge of exasperation and then dammit, there's that smirk again.
"You think there's something…elegant…about Shirer?" Visions of Jack L. Shirer's beer-encrusted sweatshirt dance in his head.
"God, no." Eames crosses her arms and leans back against the mirror. "If the Catholic church put him on a poster, they could double the number of nuns in a week."
"So…?"
The smirk becomes a smile, slow and wide, and he thinks maybe this is going to be her revenge for all the arrogant shit he pulled earlier in this case—shit Eames I was planning on apologizing sometime maybe probably no really I was really was I swear—that for the rest of their doubtless short partnership she's going to spout archaic vocabulary words at random points and refuse to tell him why until he goes insane with trying to figure it out.
"So you, Goren, are very flippercanorious."
He cocks his head, puzzled.
"It's about the silliest, clumsiest, most ungainly word someone could have come up with to mean 'elegant,'" Eames says, and he raises an eyebrow at her. Not a compliment, then. Fine. It's not like he's disappointed. At all.
It's not like he was hoping she would come around.
"And when you were interrogating Shirer, the way you moved, and talked, and some other times when we were undercover earlier…you're the only person I know who can bumble gracefully." She shrugs. "The word seemed appropriate."
She turns to leave, and she's halfway out the door before he calls, "Wait!"
She turns back, 'what now?' clearly written on her face.
"Purfled?"
She rolls her eyes. "In your dreams, Goren."
He stares at the doorway for a few moments after she's gone, and then, slowly, he starts to grin.
Maybe this'll work out after all.