Author's Note: Wasn't sure I was going to continue this, but then it's not like I'm writing just to fill the few months of hiatus before a new season and just guessing. So...here's something new. Reviews appreciated. Not sure where this is going...but it's moving away from the end to the start of something new. I suppose it's like that song "every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end."

It was the Monday after the holiday weekend. Most people in the squad bay were hung over and sun burnt. Crews and Reese were neither. Their holiday held an entirely different sort of illumination. On this morning, both burned from within; and the only one who saw or felt it was the other….and possibly Dani's ex.

"Crews," Tidwell barked, "my office."

The Captain's voice held a tense tone but his command was clear and unequivocal. While he spoke to the tall red haired detective, his eyes remained fixed on the man's diminutive brunette partner, who never even looked up from her desk. He scowled, drew the blinds and twisted the plastic rod that pivoted the blades to grant a moderate degree of protection from prying eyes. This conversation would only be as private as Crews let it be. It was a risk, one that might serve to drive Dani further away, but he had to know – in the way people have to know things that might hurt them, but they still have to know.

"What's up?" Crews wondered as he trailed the shorter man into his office. His tone bespoke ignorance, but Tidwell knew Crews to be quite savvy and probably onto why he was summoned. They both pasted on fake smiles and let the game begin.

"Shut the door," Tidwell demanded.

Charlie knew better than to make some cheeky joke about Reese and Tidwell. With any luck, the days of the Captain having one on one's with Crews' partner were in the past.

Tidwell tried to fish with all the finesse of a stick of dynamite thrown into the water. "So what'd you do this weekend?"

"That's not really what you're asking me….is it?" Charlie faced his boss down without batting an eyelid. "I won't inform on her. If that's what you're asking."

Tidwell exhaled in a long heavy sigh. "Look, she just went dark and quiet on me. I just want to know that she's okay."

"Then ask her," Crews reflected the question off his sunny smile like sun bouncing off a pane of glass. He grasped the doorknob and twisted it, then stopped. "Only when you do…..ask her….leave the blinds open." He pulled the door open and left he office door and the Captain's mouth both hanging open.

"Sonofabitch…" Tidwell swore softly under his breath. How had he missed it? Crews was being territorial and protective of his partner. He always had been – to a degree, but that…. that was a threat: a cool, icy and crystal clear warning.

"The Captain wants to see you," Crews announced as he sat down heavily at his desk and grinned at her.

"If the Captain wanted to see me, he wouldn't have said 'Crews' when he walked past," she astutely observed, somewhat ignoring him.

"He asked for me, but what he wants is you," Charlie pronounced presciently.

She looked up to determine his mood. He could have been genuine, teasing or reflective and only by looking at his eyes could she truly tell. His eyes were clear and a blue grey. Shit, that meant he was telling the truth. No spin, no Zen, just a solid, still and sometimes bitter truth. She flicked her gaze to Tidwell's office and he was standing in the doorway fiddling with the plastic rod to reopen the blinds.

A moment later a familiar refrain sang out, "Detective Reese? A moment?"

Dani sighed, rolled her eyes and stood. "What did you say to him?" Dani whispered harshly to her partner.

Charlie twisted his head considering his answer for a moment. "Words," he replied.

"You fucking…" she began.

He chided her with a teasing, "tsk, tsk, tsk."

"I'm gonna kill you if you told him about this weekend," she glowered pushing in her chair. Stalling, she was stalling. Might as well get this over with.

"I didn't," Crews assured. Again the clear blue grey of truth met her, "I wouldn't." He meant it and she believed him. Besides nothing happened this weekend, nothing but potential energy being measured. It was all still theoretical, like string theory he reasoned.

"What's up?" Dani asked portraying the same casual coolness and lack of affect her partner had. They were getting to be too much alike.

"As your Captain," he began unsteadily, "I need to ask how you did this weekend."

"At the race track?" Dani's reply was sarcastic yet witty. She knew what he meant.

"I wouldn't have to ask, if I'd have seen you," he whined. "I'd know you were okay. That the holiday and stuff didn't present a temptation to you…" he trailed off. There was more than one sort of temptation out there and they both knew it.

"I am working the program, Captain," Dani said icily. "I'm about done with my ninety in ninety. Haven't smoked, shot up, snorted, drank or otherwise ingested anything more dangerous than a root beer in months. Happy?"

"Anything but…" his tired refrain wasn't meant to be audible to her, but it was. Kinda like Crews did sometimes.

"Did you want me to fall off the wagon? So that I'd need you or something?"

"God…no!" His frustration showed. "It's just that since Roman….things haven't been the same between us."

"Since Roman…there hasn't been an us," she replied coolly. "Not likely to be either."

"Why?" he laid himself bare. "All I did was try to find you. When you came home I just wanted to show you how much I cared…how much I still care…Dani, I love…"

"Don't," she warned and with just one finger shut him up. She wished that trick worked on Crews. "I don't want to hear this, I don't want to do this. We're done and you need to accept that fact."

He stood there staring at her. She wasn't floundering. She wasn't in trouble. She was a rock and she was impressive as hell. The silence however was her undoing, just as Crews often commented, people like to fill a void. She fell victim to that void.

"Did you know that when I was at the FBI they asked me about Crews? In fact, now that I think about it…and I have thought about it, ALL they asked me about was Crews. Crews and Rayborne, Crews and my father, Crews and the department; they just wanted Crews and they were going to use me to get him."

"And you think I knew?" he blurted out an obvious question.

"I think you sent them Crews' partner, the one person he probably trusts. I think it's damned convenient that out of all the possibilities, you chose me – a drunk, a junkie, in the middle of a relapse." Her hands were on her hips and she stood defiantly before him daring him to say differently than she believed. "You chose me to work at the FBI – because it would be good for me," she repeated his rationale, but her words were dripping with sarcasm and disdain.

"I know what it seems like," he offered meekly.

Her look bespoke victory.

"But what seems is not always what is," he finished.

God damn him and his puppy dog eyes, she thought. And the crazy talk? The sounding like Crews? Jesus was she to be surrounded by men who talked in obscure circles. She exhaled in frustration, turned on her heel and left.

Only after she walked out, did she realize that he'd never actually denied it. He hadn't flatly denied sending her to the FBI because she was exactly what the FBI wanted, maybe asked for. She looked over her shoulder in time to see him throw a folder onto his beaten leather couch. It begged the question, why did they want Crews? And who were they? Was Tidwell one of them?

Maybe it was like Crews said, 'there are no answers, only questions.' She mused. Could Crews be right? He was proving to be annoyingly correct about a number of things, not the least of which was that they were connected.

"Hey," Crews said lowly in her ear. She was so lost in thought on the way to the coffee machine that he'd stepped close and she hadn't even noticed. Ordinarily she'd have jumped having someone that close to her, but his low tone and the scent of his cologne only made her shiver.

"Jesus," she complained, "would you not do that?"

"Okay," he backed away with both hands raised. "I was just going to offer to buy you real coffee. You know? The kind with flavor and whipped cream," he said softly with a tiny smile hinted at by the crinkles at the corners of his eyes. "But if you wanna stay here and drink whatever's burned into the bottom of that Bunn coffeepot…"

"Fine," she gave in. She really wanted decent coffee anyway.

"Oh," he commented as he dragged his suit jacket from the back of his chair. "And we have a case," he smiled. "Did I forget to mention that? It's okay; he's dead. We got time for coffee, it's not like he's going anywhere."