Ames often wondered when her life became some sort of fucked up family movie entitled My Three Dads. And sometimes My Two Dads and One Scary Uncle, although figuring out who was going to be playing the Scary Uncle on any day was a little like playing Find the Lady. She'd spend the morning thinking that one of the guys was the Scary Uncle of the Day, only to find out by noon that he'd really been playing the Well-Meaning Father role or possibly Disapproving Dad, and actually, one of the other guys had been the Scary Uncle all along.

Currently her money was on Guerrero for the part of Scary Uncle. He kept shooting her these Looks (and they fully justified the capital letter) that he obviously intended to mean something, but only made him look like he was trying to mind meld with her (which the thought of totally weirded her out; as much as she respected him, she never, ever wanted to know what went on inside his head).

It turned out, though, that he was just trying to warn her.

"Late night?" Chance asked when he caught her ninth yawn in an hour.

"Yeah," she said, trailing off when she caught sight of Guerrero waggling his eyebrows. It looked like he was having a seizure that was confined to his forehead. She tore her attention away with a frown and added, "I guess."

"You do anything illegal?"

Ames rolled her eyes. "Only if Prohibition is back in style."

Chance nodded amiably, like he'd been expecting that answer. Then, suddenly, his full attention was on her, staring her down like a detective in the middle of a heated interrogation. "Who's the new guy?"

Ames swung round to glare at Guerrero. She knew that he knew already. Guerrero always knew, whether she wanted him to or not. In fact, she'd stopped trying to pull anything over on him two weeks into their association. "He knows?" she hissed at him. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"I was trying."

"That…whatever that was?" she asked, waving a hand at him. "I don't speak 'eyebrows'."

"Dude, it was Morse code."

"That either."

"What's his name?" Chance wanted to know.

"Nick," she replied. There really wasn't any point hiding it now. Guerrero would tell him even if she didn't. Guerrero probably already knew where Nick went to preschool and whether he still had his wisdom teeth. She considered that Nick might be in some danger just by knowing her, but she figured that if he couldn't deal with her co-workers then he probably wasn't worth keeping around anyway.

"And?"

"And what?" she said, throwing up her hands. "He's a mechanic, he was born and raised here, and he's nice." Grumpily, she added, "He even held the door open for me last night."

"He's a mechanic," Chance repeated in a flat sort of voice that made it clear that it wasn't a question.

"Yes."

"And by mechanic, you mean…"

"Mechanic. God! He's not a car thief."

"There's a lot of shady stuff involving a car that has nothing to do with stealing it," Guerrero put in. He gave her an unfazed look when she glared at him before he left the room. Apparently, she was on her own with this one.

"Where'd you meet him?" Chance asked.

"What? You don't know already?" Ames snapped. "Here I was under the assumption that my life was on display for everyone to see."

Chance sighed. He suddenly looked tired. "Believe it or not, I'm just worried about you. You don't have the best track record."

"Don't try to mask Scary Uncle behind Well-Meaning Dad," Ames said. "And don't try to play that I'm the only one on the team who's made mistakes."

"First, I have no idea what you're talking about," Chance said, ticking off his talking points on his fingers. "And second, yeah, we've all made mistakes, but some of us are a little bit quicker at learning from them."

When Ames crossed her arms over her chest and glared at him, he rolled his eyes. "Look, Ames, I'm your boss, not your father. But I do care what happens to you. We all do." She raised her eyebrows, and he added, "Even Guerrero."

"Yeah, right," she muttered, although deep down she thought it might be true. After all, he hadn't tried to kill her yet, and that seemed to be his default setting.

"Trust is earned," Chance responded. "And loyalty means a lot with this crowd. But I'll give you the benefit of the doubt: if you say Nick's on the level, I'll let it go."

"Really?" she asked, suspicious by his sudden leniency.

"No," Chance said with an unrepentant grin. "But we promise not to be too obvious about tailing him."

Just then Winston popped his head into the room. "She tell you about the mechanic yet?"

"Even the cop knows?"

"Who do you think told me?" Chance said.

"God," Ames muttered as she slunk down in her chair. "Just when you think you have the Scary Uncle figured out…"

A/N: I don't dislike Ames - I think she has sort of a pesky little sister thing that could work on the show; I just think it's funny when the guys give her a hard time. :)