Disclaimer: yeah whatever, you already know I'm powerless

Rating: T

Summary: Just two cops on a stakeout late at night. No Shules, no Carlowe, no trace of this last season which showed us exactly how little the show's writers think of Juliet. (Not that I have an opinion or anything.)

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"I spy, with my little eye—"

"Your big blue eye," Juliet interrupted.

Carlton scowled at her. "That's not how the game goes."

She smiled, sunny as ever, and how she could pull that off at three in the morning after four hours of a back alley stakeout in the Crown Vic, he had no idea.

"I changed the rules."

"O'Hara, you cannot change the rules of a game like I Spy."

"Yes I can, because I value honesty, and you don't have little eyes. You have big beautiful blue eyes."

He told himself to ignore the compliment. "O'Hara. It's three a.m."

"It's three ten," she corrected, still sunny. "Honesty, remember?"

"Holy Mother of—how far are you planning to take this?"

"To the end of the line. Now start over."

He sighed dramatically. "I spy, with my big eye—"

"Blue."

"No. The original is little eye, not little blue eye. It would be dishonest," he added with a smirk, "to change it by adding a color."

She only smiled. "Okay. Go ahead."

"Something that starts with—"

"No, start from the beginning!"

Shaking his head—and inexplicably not even annoyed—he went 'round again. "I spy, with my big eye, something that starts with m."

"Mouse!"

"Nope."

Juliet frowned. "It's not melancholy again, is it? Last time you used that it took me twenty tries before you gave in."

"It's not melancholy." He glanced at their surroundings. "Although this place would be a good source."

"Oh, I don't know. A little extra garbage removal, some window washing and a few coats of paint, maybe some—"

"There's nothing you can't spruce up, is there?" From anyone else, he'd consider that a bad trait.

Her smile was wide. "True. Thank you."

He had to grin. "You're welcome. Are you stalling?"

"Of course not. M. M… hmmm…" She gazed out the windows, brow furrowed. "Muggles?"

"Muggers? Where?"

"No, Muggles." At his no-doubt blank look, she shrugged. "Never mind. M… money? Have you spotted a penny somewhere in the murk—ooh! Murk!"

He laughed. "Nope. Murk's good, though. As for spotting pennies, that's a Scots thing, isn't it?"

"I am not a tightwad," she said archly.

"You know how copper wire was invented?"

Juliet sighed. "When two Scotsmen each refused to let go of the same penny. What's the M? I give up."

"But you've barely started!"

"Don't get cocky, Carlton, or the next object you look for is going to be your big black eye."

He did not try to hide his amusement—there wasn't much he could hide from her anyway. "Mold." Pointing past her out her window. "On the wall by the Dumpster."

"Niiiice," she said approvingly. "Okay, my turn."

"Are we keeping score?"

"Well, I know you, don't I? We're dead even at the moment."

"Fine. Go."

"I spy, with my little eye—"

"Big," he interrupted smoothly.

Juliet looked over at him, startled. "What?"

"You also have big beautiful blue eyes."

It's just a fact, he assured himself. Not a compliment.

She hesitated, a curious expression on her lovely face. "Thank you."

"Honesty," he reminded her, a bit unsettled at the look she was giving him. "Go ahead."

After a moment, she offered, "I spy with my big eye, something that starts with… S."

He took a few seconds to analyze: she hadn't looked out the window, or at anything in particular in the car (just him), so she either chose an object ahead of her turn or chose something right around him or directly past him out his window.

"Steering wheel," he said confidently.

"Nope."

"Sleeve."

Juliet shook her head, still watching him.

"Side mirror?"

Another head-shake.

"Shoulder."

Still a head-shake, this one with a smile.

"Smile?" He didn't think he had been smiling, and he wasn't smiling now, but—

"No." Her voice was soft. "Give up?"

"Uh, am I not Carlton Lassiter?"

With a laugh, she turned in the seat to wait him out.

"Suspects... Shoe?" There had to be a discarded shoe somewhere in the alley; it was a rule of alleys.

But Juliet only said no again.

"Snake. No wait: smirk!" He knew he'd been doing that.

She chuckled. "A smirk in the murk. I like it, but no."

"Seat!" Of course it was seat. What the hell else could it be?

"No, but it rhymes."

Carlton puzzled over this. "Street? Technically I suppose an alley is a street, it's just—"

"Not street."

"Then…" He was floundering. "Sheet of paper! There were some fluttering around before."

"Just say you give up, Carlton."

He looked at her in near-horror. "I can't do that."

"You did it before. We are tied."

"But you're… so… calm. That means it's something right under my nose and I'm going to feel like a complete idiot for missing it and I will not have that, O'Hara, not at three in the morning—excuse me, three-fifteen—after a completely futile stake-out. So I am going to keep guessing until I figure it out."

"You're not going to figure it out," she said gently.

"Then you must be cheating, except… you wouldn't, especially not after beating me over the head about honesty."

"I'm not cheating. I see something that starts with S, and it's in this car."

Carlton searched her calm expression and her lovely dark blue eyes for clues, coming up empty. "And it rhymes with street?"

She nodded.

"But it's not seat."

She shook her head.

With a sigh, he leaned back against the headreast. "Okay. I give up."

Slowly, she reached over and put one soft hand to his cheek. "It's you."

His face flamed under her touch.

"S?" he managed.

She stroked his face lightly. "Yes."

His heart pounding, he forced out the words, "I don't understand."

"Sweet."

"Oh," he said as if he understood, but he didn't understand. "You mean you."

"I wouldn't say it about myself. I'm talking about you."

"Me?"

"Yes, Carlton."

"Sweet?"

Juliet nodded.

"Me."

Now she laughed. "Yes."

"What in the hell would make you say that?"

"Do you really think I have beautiful eyes?"

He opened his mouth, but nothing came out at first.

"Carlton?"

"Doesn't everyone think that?"

"I don't care what everyone else thinks. I'm asking about you."

He cleared his throat. "Well… I mean, not in a way that'll make you file harassment charges, and I don't want to come across as creepy or anything, and you know I'd never say it in front of other people—God knows the department has strict rules about that—or in any way try to make you uncomfortable but…"

"Carlton."

"YesIthinkyouhavebeautifuleyes."

Before he could anticipate her movement, she'd leaned in to kiss the same cheek she'd already set on fire.

"Thank you," she whispered, her lips just brushing his ear. "You're sweet to say so."

"I… well, I… I… it's factual," he tried. "It's like saying the sun is yellow or the grass is green. It doesn't make me sweet to say something which everyone knows is completely obvious."

Juliet grinned. "I spy, with my big eye, something which starts with B."

Carlton was at a loss. "Bastard?"

She laughed delightedly. "No! Backpedaling. But you didn't help your case because you just said 'everyone' knows my eyes are beautiful, which everyone does not know, but the fact that you think so is—"

"It's not sweet!"

"Yeah, it's a little sweet." She kissed his cheek again. "You're a lot more sweet than you like people to know."

"I spy," he began grimly, "with my big eye, something which starts with D and ends with elusional."

And if she didn't get her fingertips off his neck he was going to melt right into her arms.

"I think we need to have dinner."

"Now?"

"You're right. We should just go get breakfast. We have some things to talk about."

"We do?"

"Yes, we do." She gestured to the radio. "Call it in. We're done. The only thing moving in this alley tonight are the rats in the garbage."

"What are we going to talk about?"

Juliet smiled serenely as she settled back into her own seat. "Things."

"Things?"

"Call it in, Carlton. Everything will make a lot more sense over fresh coffee and eggs."

"It will?"

"Are you going to answer everything with questions?"

He pulled himself together. "No. If you want to have breakfast so we can talk about things, we'll have breakfast." He reached for the radio, still not entirely sure what those things would be, but given that she'd kissed his face twice and called him sweet, he had an inkling they wouldn't be unpleasant things.

After he'd called in the end of the stakeout, and as he was slowly heading out of the alley, he did add, with a meaningful tap to the rearview mirror so she'd know he meant himself, "I spy, with my big eye, something that starts with UO."

Juliet grinned. "UO?"

Carlton grinned back. "Uncharacteristically optimistic."

"And that," she said as she reached over to draw his hand from the steering wheel and clasp it warmly, "is also what I like to call sweet."

Well.

She was hardly ever wrong.

He'd just have to man up and accept it.

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