Summary: August 2003. The show is on filming hiatus and I'm taking an unscheduled break due to the power outage here in the Northeastern US so I decided to play with my favorite television characters. If I don't think better of it in the meantime, I'll transfer this to the computer and post it once the power comes back. Takes place after the great blackout of 2003. To say anything more would reveal the ending (which I may or may not have written yet; I'm not revealing that either). Something about putting words on paper rather than a computer screen seems to inspire me to write in prose. Not necessarily a good thing but we'll try this and see what y'all think.

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Chapter 1

I wouldn't put it past him

It's no longer black!

The power is back!

Still it would be a shame

If there was no one to blame

Let's see you lay THIS on Iraq!!

Bobby Goren shook his head and prepared to transfer the single piece of paper and its accompanying envelope to a manila folder.

"Anything interesting, Bobby?"

"No, not really, Eames. Over the last few weeks, one of New York's 'finer' citizens has been sending me these really bad limericks. This is just the latest." Bobby glanced over at his partner who looked up in response to his words. He didn't quite catch the expression that quickly passed over her face.

"Shouldn't you be getting that dusted for prints or something?" Alex got up from her desk and walked over to stand behind Bobby.

Bobby shrugged. " I did have the first one dusted. Traces of powder from latex gloves but no prints. Since then, I haven't bothered. It's not like there's a obvious threat here. Or if there is, I can't see it. Faint traces of a woman's perfume and the writing is apparently feminine but that's about all I can tell. Oh, and the manner in which certain words are rhymed indicate the writer is probably from the Midwest. But the postmarks are local so she's either got a friend in the city to mail these for her or more likely, she relocated here at some point. The stationery she uses comes from a local arts & crafts shop."

Alex laughed. "Can't help yourself, can you Bobby?" She proceeded to take the paper and read its contents. "You don't think this person might be claiming responsibility for last week's blackout?"

He laughed. "Unlikely, Eames. After all everyone from the President to the local city councilors to the guy who runs the bodega where I get my morning coffee have been insisting it was due to an equipment failure, most likely in Michigan. Besides none of the other limericks mentioned the power failure. It's curious though most of them have made references to the President. This one, for example refers to President Bush's efforts to justify the bombing of Iraq, implying that if he could, Bush would blame the blackout on terrorists. Clumsy, but I suppose the writer suffers from a limited vocabulary." He looked up as Alex made a noise. She shook her head, indicating he should continue. "Nothing threatening in any of them, but as you can see" indicating the folder, "I've been saving them."

Alex held out her hand. "Let me take a look. You may be inferring something that the writer didn't intend to imply." At his questioning look Alex continued "What? Just because I let YOU point it out to that suspect in the botox case, doesn't mean I didn't know the difference between imply and infer." She grinned. "Back to these limericks. Maybe it's a "girl thing" and I can make something out of them."

Instead of handing her the folder, Bobby extracted a single piece of paper and passed it to Alex, saying "this was the first one. It arrived almost exactly six weeks ago."