Brian could feel her breath on his cheek, as the clustered hair of his never-there beard stubble bristled with each tight exhale of warm fear. She was lying beneath him, her arms wrapped around his back, his arms slipped under her shoulders, his bruised and calloused guitar-strumming hands grazing her silken hair. Their eyes briefly meet, taking in each others panic, trying to silently will it away with flutters and creased winks in the shadowed confines of their hiding place.

This would be sorta sexy, he thought, if it weren't for the two guys tearing through her apartment. And if it were some other girl. Not Rebecca. Or maybe….

The sound of dresser drawers crashing to the ground surrounded them, as her spare keys, extra ammo and even cutlery spilled out, littering the apartment. Brain held her closer, tightening his grip, each time a boot clad foot stepped nearer their secret spot under the floorboards. Dust nestled into his hair and skin and he wondered, does she have allergies, because if she has allergies that's going to get us killed.

They had been drinking a beer, the last one in her fridge, passing it back and forth, taking turns at taking sips. She didn't wipe the bottle clean after he gulped in too much foam, spitting some of it out onto his pants, letting it drip to the floor. She wasn't concerned with the temporary mess or his germs or the squandering of the last beer. Rebecca laughed instead and he liked that.

Maybe too much, he thought.

It wasn't a date, though. It never was. They were becoming friends, real, honest, amazing friends. They were sharing more than personal stories and piles of casework, they were splitting checks at coffee houses and eating Chinese food out of cardboard boxes in his loft after work. She seemed not to notice how close they were getting. It never phased her, never became romantic or complicated or even intrusive to whatever part of her life Brian had yet to see. She seemed to need him at a time when she didn't need anyone else.

After Casey's death - scratch that, after Boyle shot Casey - she was different in the office. Maybe more reserved, if that was possible. She held herself tighter, stronger, kept all her anger and grief and shame pent up. It was the shame Brian knew she was hiding. How can you sleep with a man for months and never love him? Maybe never even really like him? How can you not know he's the kind of man who would betray you? Or maybe the kind of man you could force into betraying you with one hit of the send button on a terribly mistimed text?

She's wrong. She didn't do this. Casey did it to himself. I think.

Try telling Rebecca that. So instead, Brian kept his mouth shut and somehow that seemed to work.

The beer was in celebration of a cracked case. Brain had figured out that a missing NYC police officer wasn't missing at all. He'd faked a disappearance because he was skimming from the evidence locker, taking everything from money to drugs to guns, and then selling them back onto the streets. The kicker was, the cop would then bust the perps he'd sold the stuff to and do it all over again. The serial numbers on a few guns burned him and Brian was able to find him through a string of emails, though he did have to learn a bit of Spanish, French and German in less than three hours, coupled with code, in order to read them.

It was a case they never would have been on, if not for the fact that this particular police officer was a first responder to the body floating in the harbor - Rebecca's dad's body. Now, he was in custody and tomorrow Rebecca would interrogate him and learn something, Brian hoped, learn anything, please.

"Thank you," she said, holding up the beer, forgetting Brian didn't have one of his own to complete the toast.

He reached out and grabbed the bottle, his hand inadvertently wrapping around her own. For a moment, she didn't let go, and they stood in her kitchen, hands touching, smiles brimming.

"You're welcome," he told her.

I love this part, he thought. When the NZT starts wearing off, but the success of the day is still there, still reeling through my mind. I love days when it's just me and….

"Brian," she waved her hand in front of his face. "You there?"

"Yeah, sorry. I was just thinking."

"You're always thinking," she relinquished the bottle and headed to the living room. "Your 12 hours is nearly up. It's time to relax."

I love days when it's just me and her.

Before she had a chance to examine his face, note his smile and the twinkle in his eye - one not created by NZT - they both heard the voices in the hall. They were raised, then hushed, raised, then silenced. Instinctively, Brain switched off the lights. In his time, he'd dealt with a few too many shady characters, always looking for a quick buck. Usually a buck he owed them and was unable to pay, so hiding was always his first move.

Rebecca opened her mouth to speak, but Brian put his hand up to stop her, still able to make her out in the glow of the streetlights just outside her picture window.

The doorknob began to turn, pressing against the lock. Someone was outside. Someone was trying to get in. Someone was trying to hurt them; Brian could only assume. He grabbed Rebecca's hand and rushed to the window. They were four stories up and without his NZT, or even a fire escape, Brian wasn't sure what to do.

Jump? Scream? Jump? Damn?

Rebecca, her hand still wrapped in his own, moved to the bedroom, dragging him along. She dropped to her knees beside the bed and began prying up floorboards, three of them glued together, with a roped hinge holding them in place. It was just enough space for her to slip through. Before Brain could worry about his own form fitting in the opening, Rebecca pulled him down on top of her and slid the cluster of boards back into place.

Seconds later the front door burst open and the men were inside.

It took them five minutes to destroy her apartment, ripping through it like a tornado, without any care of who would hear, without any fear of being caught in the act.

Brain tried to take in the sound of their boots, the distinctive smell of their cologne, the way they walked, the whispers they uttered, everything. But as Regular Brian, the non-super powered, boring, simple, plain guy that he was, everything above them mixed together and sounded like nothing more than fear. Unless that was his own heart beating, pounding through his t-shirt and into Rebecca's chest.

I hate this part, he thought. When the NZT starts wearing off, but the day isn't over and I still need my mind to reel with solutions to problems. I hate days when it's just me and her and I can't solve a damn thing.

"Check this out," Brian heard one of the men say. He was sure they were in the kitchen and even in his "simple" state he knew there was a half-drunk beer on the counter and a puddle of alcohol on the tiled floor. The men would realize someone was just there, maybe still there, and they'd tear everything apart to find them. To find her.

And I can't protect her like this.

The sound of a cell phone pierced his garbled thoughts, and Brian caught himself stifling a sharp inhale of panic. But it wasn't his phone or Rebecca's, their hiding spot was still safe. The men took a call, one saying some "yes sirs" and "no sirs" and before Brian could process what was happening the front door closed and he and Rebecca were alone.

Brian reached back to push up the floorboards, but Rebecca held him close, for just one more moment, then she released him and they were suddenly free.

The apartment lay in ruin.

"Are you okay?" he asked her feebly, not sure what to do if her answer was "no."

Rebecca nodded, shaken, but standing beside him. Alive, but covered in dust and Brian's sweat.

"I think they want the painting," she blurted out.

"One of your dad's paintings?" Brian asked, using his foot to sort through some of the papers on the floor. "I don't understand."

"They were selling so fast at his gallery show, I wasn't sure I'd ever see them again. And I know I said I didn't care, that I didn't want them or need them but-"

"But he's your dad."

Rebecca nodded. "Yeah. Well, he painted one of me, and I just had to have it. I don't know. I can't really explain it."

"I still don't understand," Brian repeated. "We don't even know who those guys were. How can you know they wanted the painting?"

Rebecca began looking through her war torn apartment, picking up broken pieces of her life, attempting to set them right again. "The case today with the cop. All that stuff about the NZT trials. I mean, Epperly died right after I talked to him about my dad. Maybe I'm getting too close.

Brian wanted to help her, always had, but he was still keeping his connection to Senator Morra and the reason for his miraculous immunity to NZT a secret. After what happened to Epperly, Brian knew she was in danger, no matter what Morra told him on that rooftop. Five extra NZT pills didn't mean the guy was a saint. The newspaper said an unidentified man died in a gas leak explosion, but Brian and Rebecca knew better. Rebecca knew something was wrong, someone was deleting NZT trial information from existence and Brian knew who was doing deleting.

"Brian?" Rebecca snapped his fingers. "You there?"

"Sorry, just thinking."

"I know. It's ridiculous, but what if my dad was trying to communicate with me?"

"Through the painting?"

"He's an abstract artist, like Picasso or Pollack, well not as good, but you get what I mean. And then, this one painting is of me. A fully rendered, huge portrait of me."

"You think it's a code or something... hidden in the image?"

"We have to get the painting, Brian. We have to figure it out before anyone else does."

"Well, I take it the painting wasn't in here," he said, holding up just one of many emptied dresser drawers.

"I rent a storage unit," she told him, her eyes scanning the ground. "The bill was in this drawer."

"Was?"

Ignoring him, Rebecca hurried back to the makeshift hole in her bedroom floor, rooting around the dusty space, searching for something.

"Well, if they have the bill, they have the address and the unit number. So, they know where the painting is," he said, looking to the table by the door and noticing, for the first time, her empty holster. "And they have your gun."

He walked quickly to the bedroom, to make sure she heard him.

"Rebecca, they have your gun."

Still on her knees, over the hole in the floor, Rebecca lifted a dusty duffle bag from the hiding spot and set it at his feet.

"Unless you have guns, ammo and maybe some body armour in there, I'd say it's probably time to call backup," he told her, as she opened the bag, revealing guns, ammo and a bullet proof vest.

"No backup. No one else can know," she told him, before standing and striding confidently to the door.

In his NZT-less state, Brian was overcome with wave after wave of conflicting emotions and hit after hit of questions without answer.

"Wait a minute," Brain called after her. She ignored him again, grabbing her car keys from the floor. "Seriously, Rebecca, wait."

Brain reached out and grabbed her arm, turning her to face him. Anger shone red in her eyes.

I'm uselessly, he thought.

"We should call Boyle. I know things aren't really right with you two, but- oh, oh, we can call Mike and Ike. Or Naz? No, probably not Naz. I don't know. Give me a minute."

Brian began trying to think. It was harder than it had been just less than an hour before.

"I'm not calling anyone. And neither are you, Brian."

Brain looked her in the eye. That sounded like an order to him. She never gives orders. Not like that. Not to me.

"I'm not going to let anyone else get hurt, or die, over this," she told him. "Now, please, Brain. Let me go."

They both knew she didn't have to yell; they both knew if she wanted to, she could put him on his ass in two seconds flat.

"Your dad's show was months ago," he found himself saying. The question was too strong to ignore, even if it meant she turned tail and ran from him. "Why didn't you tell me about the painting? I could have helped you figure it out, you know. And if I don't know about it, how do those two goons? What is going on, Rebecca?"

She wrenched her arm free and pressed forward, standing toe to toe, eye to eye.

"Why did you really steal the NZT files from Naz's office? Who else knows about our investigation into the trails? Someone does, Brain, or Epperly wouldn't be dead. Why is it that you think you know everything? NZT is great, for you, but I'm an FBI agent and you treat me like your underling. Why is that Brain? And why do you look at me like that? You're always looking at me like that."

"Like what?" Brain scoffed, shocked by the whole line of her questioning.

"Like you're dying to tell me something. Like you have a secret."

Brain lowered his eyes. She caught him, and in his state he didn't have a smart reply or witty lie to get out of it.

I'm sorry. I wanted to tell you, but they threatened me. Well, not me. Kind of me, with the whole saying I'll die a slow, painful, disgusting, NZT-withdrawal death. I mean that was pretty much a threat. But it's mostly my dad. I made a deal. A terrifying deal and now I can't-

"Brian?" Rebecca shook his shoulders.

Brain blinked back into the room.

"Are you coming or not?" she asked him, turning back to the door.

"After all that, after everything you said, you want me to help you?" Brian replied, saddened by her realization that he wasn't exactly who he said he was and hopeful that she could see past it.

Rebecca stood with one hand on the doorknob to her apartment, the other wrapped firmly around the straps to her duffle bag.

"Rebecca?"

Throwing a glance over her shoulder, dust falling from her long, sleek pony-tail she smiled. "Yeah. I want you to come with me. Even when I'm so mad that I want to scream at you, Brian, I still want you with me."

Brian smiled.

Then Rebecca opened the door, and swiftly found herself violently thrown backwards into Brian's arms, the force taking them both the ground. Rebecca's eyes rolled back before closing. She was unconscious, lying limp across his chest and legs.

Looking up, Brain watched as the shadowed figure in Rebecca's doorway stepped closer.

Sands. Just my luck.