Nicole and Antonio decided to see other people. Actually he decided, she agreed out of pride. At the time the rejection gave her a hunch that she wouldn't be getting any flowers anytime soon. Somehow, the break-up seemed justified after the umpteenth time she thought about it. He wasn't prepared to wait for something uncertain and much to her chagrin, his conditional staying was in the promise of something concrete at a time when her emotions were fluid. The inadequacy of being incapable of subscribing to the life he always wanted because of who she was made the heartache worse. Watching him leave and knowing she couldn't stop it made her give in to all the horoscopes that told her that an Aries woman and a Cancer man together were the height of incompatibility. He missed her; the excitement of her unpredictability, the tension, passion and ecstasy created when they made love and the grace period before their issues bubbled to the surface. In time he found someone new and, at least thought, he was over Nicole.

Nevertheless life moved on and nine months later she returned to the D.C. field office after a seven month deep cover operation in Memphis, Tennessee. The time away gave her a fresh perspective, a better mood and someone warm. Walking past his office, she heard a laugh through the crack in the door. The profile of the woman's face turned to reveal a striking resemblance to Rosario Dawson. An acute pang of anger and jealousy proved she was human but the absence of any instinct to act on it proved, for the moment, she was over him. Xiomara Ortiz, the thirty-one year old, statuesque, Dominican beauty was a curator with a carefree demeanour that didn't reflect her many encounters with death. In her last year of college, she lost her first lover, childhood best friend, paternal grandfather and teenage brother. Multiple causes of mourning only perpetuated her acceptable of mortality and further ride her of the natural thanatos-induced fear.

"Will you be done soon?" She asked, impatiently waiting.

"Absolutely."

"You said the same thing half an hour ago. It's just paperwork."

He finally gave up on it. "I did. Where to?"

"I heard that Chase has the best seafood in D.C."

He put on his jacket and opened the door for her. "Right this way."

Nicole recognised the look of excessive partying and an overload of work in Jess' twitchy behaviour.

"Are you on something?" She asked, startling her partner and reviving the link between them.

"Just a natural high. I'm hitting every club state-wide and beyond, you only live once right?"

"That's my girl. What else have you been up to?"

"I've had a few dating disasters but mostly I'm enjoying being young, free and single." Nicole smiled; pleased to hear Jess wasn't pining after Colin. "How was Memphis?"

"Like being in a time warp; good old Southern discomfort."

"What do you mean?"

"Silent segregation, class divide, police brutality; I thought LAPD were bad but damn. So, about Antonio…"

"I never had the time to tell you. I'm sorry."

"No worries."

"No worries?"

"Well, she's gorgeous - we all know he has great taste – so good for him." She exhaled on the end of her sentence leaving Jess flabbergasted with the appraisal that Nicole was either genuinely playing it cool or plotting double homicide.

"What's his name?" Jess asked, sure of another man being on the horizon.

"Rashad Williams. He lives outside Los Angeles, he's an HIV/AIDS consultant, brilliant, down-to-earth and…I love him."

"Wow. So does he know about you?"

"No. There was so much I couldn't say being undercover. Have you ever felt someone saw inside you? With no concern for the layers; they're just fighting to get to the essence of who you are only to embrace you for it."

"Not yet."

"That's how I feel and I want to tell him everything. Tonight."

"Good luck."

"See you in the morning."

Nina's phone call as she left the office was everything she expected of her mother; after scolding her for not getting back with Antonio, not being as sad about it as she was and not calling as often as was possible; she welcomed her back and thanked her for the jewellery she got for her birthday. Nicole subsequently buried the cell as far as she could in her handbag and fought the butterflies of doing what could be the most courageous act of her life.

At 7.30a.m. Jess and Antonio were reading the reports from their new case. By 8.00a.m. Nicole still hadn't shown up. Her absence an hour later told them something was wrong. Antonio called the Memphis office.

"She's supposed to be back." He said in a random tone.

"Didn't you see her yesterday?" Jess looked away as she knew that would set him off. She tried to stay out of their affair when it went sour but as the neutral point and mutual friend, they tended to drag her in without realising it.

"That's impossible, she would've said something. Where is she?"

Pollock's voice appeared before he did in the bullpen, they never noticed him walking up on them. "I don't know the location of the cat's mother but Agent Scott's car was found crashed into an old industrial building in the early hours of the morning."

"What about the Rhode Island case?" Jess asked.

"If that's your priority…it's not mine. I kicked it to the Virginia Field Office. Where was she going?"

"She didn't say where sir, just with whom."

"Who with?" Antonio asked on reflex, temporarily forgetting he slept with Xiomara just hours ago then regaining it with a smile.

"Rashad Omar Williams."

"Three names; sounds criminal." Antonio replied.

"Like Antonio Carlos Cortez?" Pollock rebutted, shutting him up. He knew sending Nicole away for a while would make her wise up and abandon the office romance; hearing that she had made him feel victorious, but even that glee didn't make her any more present. An agent handed him a file and was instructed to locate and bring in Nina and Rashad then Pollock declared, "Somewhere between leaving this office and her play-date with Mr. Williams, someone kidnapped Agent Scott."

"The kidnapping could've happened afterwards." Antonio suggested.

"Or she hasn't been kidnapped and just decided to take a day off. She could be with him now."

"Was the car crashed before or after the kidnapping?" Antonio asked Pollock who was already agitated at her disappearance.

"What do I pay you for? Hammer hard people." He ordered as he left.

"So she's seeing someone, cool." Antonio mustered.

"Talk it out when we find her." Jess suggested.

"I never thought this would happen." Antonio replied in response to the kidnapping and her new boyfriend.

"We never do. No one is safe, we all know that. Let's bring her home."

Two hours later.

Pollock was waiting for them in Nicole's office after the canvas. "The boyfriend came up clean. He passed the polygraph and didn't ask for a lawyer. Imagine that."

"Maybe he's a sociopath." Antonio's Freudian slip was taken as a legitimate opinion.

"Not according to Dr. Susan Divine. He doesn't even know she's in the FBI. We have gifts, from the kidnapper." A bunch of sunflowers and box of Belgian chocolates sat on her old desk. "What did you find?" Pollock asked them with impatience.

"There was no sign of a struggle sir. The car was crashed after Nicole was taken, there's DNA other than hers in the front seat and the seat was back suggesting a man of six foot four or five. That's unlike her, not to fight, but there were no traces of chloroform; just glove marks on the wheel and a few smudged prints of her own. Footprints indicate two kidnappers, both male, one took her and the other crashed the car. The vehicle of choice was a used minivan as shown by the width of the tyre tracks."

"My vision showed Nicole running through a minefield, the grass had inanimate grey rabbits made of fluff on it."

"Dust bunnies." Antonio suggested.

"I guess so. Instead of footprints she was leaving tyre marks on the grass like those on the road. Then a white light shone and she fell into this vacant space, she looked out of it. It felt empty, numb."

Pollock slams a picture on the table in the bullpen, jolting them both. The picture was just like her image of Nicole in the vision. "It appears that you both need to brush up on your slang. The anesthetic-induced hallucinatory state of Agent Scott in your vision is caused by PCP. Angel Dust. I want better than this from both of you. She's one of ours and with all the lives she's taken for you, you should have found her, alive, by now."

"We're doing our best sir." Antonio said.

"I'm sure Scott feels the same." He rebutted. "Makes for a nice pin-up doesn't it? Every time you think of saying that think of this picture."

"We'll find her." Jess promised with resolve to Nina, while Antonio took a call. "How are you holding up?"

"I haven't slept at all. This is all my fault."

"You didn't kidnap her."

"I know who's behind this Jess."

Nicole was half-awake in the back seat of a minivan, devoid of consciousness. "Wh...?" She said unintelligibly.

"Don't worry baby, we'll be home soon." The driver told her. "Just enjoy the ride."