Author's Note: Big, huge apologies for taking so long to get this chapter posted! I had a rough draft due for the Psych Casefic Challenge that needed work before I could come back to this, but I never intended to neglect this story for so long. Many, many thanks to those of you reading this, and especially those who have left comments. I appreciate every single one.

They weren't going to talk about it.

On this particular point, Lassiter was very, very certain. The one time in the few days since that stupid, useless, idiotic assignment that O'Hara had said "Carlton, about what happened the other…" he had interrupted her to complain – again – about the shameful lack of communication between the various law enforcement agencies. O'Hara had pursed her lips together in a tight little bow, clearly disapproving of his unwillingness to broach the topic, but she had dropped it, at least for the time being.

He didn't need to talk about it. He sincerely wished that there was a way to scrub it from his memory, so that he could never think about it again.

The Copeland investigation had turned into a massive clusterfuck. The DEA had managed to bring in Gomez, the Columbian connection, but somehow in the confusion caused by the two uncoordinated agencies, Copeland and Arianna had disappeared. Arianna's role was still unclear – everything they had turned up on her suggested that she was exactly what she claimed to be, a grad student engaged to a local businessman.

Because Lassiter and O'Hara had only been brought in on the case in the first place to assist the Narcotics unit, it wasn't their case anymore, though Juliet had expressed some concern for Arianna. But on Monday, they were back at work on the Catrow murder, with Chief Vick agreeing to let them follow up on their new leads before she called in Spencer and Guster.

Truthfully, Lassiter almost wouldn't have minded if Psych had been called in; when Spencer was in the room putting on his dog-and-pony show (fortunately, so far, without any actual dogs or ponies), it was hard to pay attention to anything else. He would have welcomed the distraction, anything to stop him from thinking about the problem that had been plaguing him for the past few months.

The problem being that he was in love with his partner.

He wasn't exactly certain for how long he had felt that way; it had crept up on him, over years of long hours and bad coffee and days and weeks of routine spiked with sudden danger. What he did know was that it had hit him like a ton of bricks as he had stood on that clock tower in the bright morning sun, holding her while she cried. He had tried to deny it, tried to convince himself that he was caught up in the emotions of the moment, but months later he still felt the same way.

It scared him so much that he had even gone to a therapist – someone not affiliated with the station, because he didn't want anyone with the power to influence Chief Vick to know – but his crappy insurance only paid for three sessions, so it hadn't done him much good (strangely, the only person he had shared that little tidbit of information with was Guster, who thankfully had apparently not told anyone else).

That was fine, though, he told himself. His feelings for her didn't change anything; she was still his partner, and his friend. She could never know, obviously. The last thing he wanted was for either of them to be embarrassed by his inconvenient, unmanageable feelings for her.

Of course, it was a lot easier to ignore the problem when he wasn't on some Christ-forsaken assignment pretending to be married to her. Two days of her holding his hand and calling him her husband and looking up at him with bright, uncomplicated smiles that made him feel like he had goddamned sunshine coming out of his chest, and despite all of that he thought he had done a pretty good job of keeping a professional demeanor right up until she kissed him.

He knew that for Juliet, it wasn't a real kiss. It didn't mean anything, aside from being a way to maintain their cover. The fact that she had responded to it he could put down to her being invested in her role, and also maybe somewhat because he had taken her by surprise by actually kissing her. He shouldn't have done that, no matter that she had goaded him into it. He usually had more self-control than that. But after two days of touching and living in close quarters and the small intimacies that came with that, he hadn't been able to help himself. He felt lucky that she was still speaking to him at all; he wouldn't have blamed her for going to Chief Vick and saying that she couldn't work with someone who stuck his tongue halfway down her throat in the middle of an undercover assignment.

Since she appeared willing to forgive, and, hopefully, forget, he just wanted things to go back to normal. He could go back to quietly and efficiently attempting to suppress his feelings for her, and she could go back to her complete ignorance of those feelings.

Although…she had been sending him weird signals for the past few days. Looking at him when she thought he wasn't paying attention, touching him even when they were alone. If she had been anyone else – and if he had possessed an optimistic bone in his body – he would almost have thought that she was interested in him.

That, however, wasn't possible. She was merely immersed in her role, and he needed to get his head out of his ass.

Part of getting back to normal was going back to work, and that's what he was glad to do now, leaning against the wall of the interrogation room, playing Mildly Threatening Cop to O'Hara's Sympathetic Cop, as she handed a tissue to Bianca Calhoun, who had been Simon Catrow's secretary until he had been murdered. Bianca was sobbing quietly as she confessed to O'Hara that she had lied about Simon's schedule on the day of his death at the behest of Simon's brother Harold, whom she claimed to be in love with.

"But Harold would never have hurt Simon!" Bianca wailed, and Lassiter gave a thinly veiled snort of disbelief that only made her cry harder. What was with these people who thought that loving someone meant that they were incapable of doing anything bad?

"Of course not," O'Hara soothed, "but, well, he was Simon's sole heir, wasn't he?"

Bianca faltered slightly. "Yes, but –"

"And he asked you to lie for him," Juliet continued in her gently relentless way. "Bianca, we could arrest you for obstruction of justice."

Lassiter winced as this only made Bianca cry harder. O'Hara leaned forward, nothing but earnest concern in her demeanor. "We don't want to do that. We understand how much you love Harold, and how much you believe in his innocence. But we can't find out what really happened to Simon if you lie to us. And doesn't Simon deserve to have some justice?"

Bianca, sniffled, nodded, blew her nose, and started talking haltingly about how she had overheard Harold and Simon arguing over money a few times, and how Harold had begged her to tell the police that Simon had left his office during the time frame when Harold had an airtight alibi, because, he had explained to her, he didn't want the cops to waste time suspecting him while the real killer went free.

Love makes idiots out of people, Lassiter thought, as he watched Bianca slowly come to grips with the fact that her boyfriend had almost certainly murdered her boss.

Later, after they had made the arrest and gotten the confession from Harold Catrow, Lassiter watched surreptitiously as Juliet worked at her computer, typing away on the report. They had already put in a nearly thirteen hour day, and he could tell that she was exhausted by the uncharacteristic slump of her shoulders.

"You can finish that tomorrow," he told her. "Go home, O'Hara."

"I'm almost done," she said, reaching for the mug of what had to be cold coffee sitting on her desk. "You go ahead. I'll see you in the morning."

He should leave. She was a fully capable adult – hell, she was probably more of a capable adult than he was – and if she said that she wanted to keep working, then he should let her alone to do exactly that. But he had a feeling that she was continuing to work because she didn't want to go home.

The image of her curled up asleep in the enormous bed at the resort, the dark gold of her hair spilling across the pillow, had remained with him for the past few days. Not, he assured himself (only partially successfully), for prurient reasons. She had been sleeping deeply, yes, but her brow had been furrowed with tension and her hands balled into fists. She had as much as said the day before that that she didn't sleep well. Nightmares, he assumed, and who wouldn't have nightmares after what she had been through? He had had a few himself since the clock tower, and he wasn't the one who had been staring down at impending death.

"Wrap it up, O'Hara," he said gruffly. "I'm starving, and I don't want to eat alone."

She didn't pause in her typing. "Thanks, but I want to spend a little more time on this."

"I know for a fact that you haven't eaten anything since lunch," he persisted, "and that was nearly seven hours ago. You can always come back here and work after you eat."

Finally, she looked up at him. "I guess I am a little hungry," she admitted. "A grilled cheese from Cora's would be good."

"Come on," he said, relieved that he wouldn't have to push any harder. A tiny, niggling voice of worry in the back of his mind suggested that he should be trying to avoid spending any off-the-clock time with her, but he shut it down. He was only looking out for the well-being of his partner, which he felt was something any good cop should do.

Under the harsh fluorescent lights of the diner it was easier to see how tired she was; O'Hara was always lovely, but he could see how pale she was and the circles under her eyes that she tried to conceal with make-up. While they waited on their food to arrive, she picked at a napkin, and he watched with somewhat morbid fascination as she decimated it into tiny scraps of paper.

"Are you thinking about the case?" he asked, and she nodded.

"Bianca reminds me a little of my mom," she said, surprising him.

"How so?"

She shrugged, looking down at the remains of the napkin. "Her complete willingness to believe in lies from someone she loves. Not that Frank ever killed anyone," she added hastily, "he's just a two-bit conman. But the way Bianca had to be walked up to the truth reminds me of my aunt doing the same thing for my mom. I hated Aunt Lucy for that at the time. I didn't want to believe it either."

"You were a kid. We all want to believe the best of our dads when we're kids," Lassiter said, thinking of his own no-good drunk of a father.

"Yeah. God!" she laughed suddenly, scooping up the remains of the napkin into her hand and squeezing them into a tight ball, "what a depressing subject. Let's talk about something else. Have Dobson and Miller made any progress on the diner robbery?"

They talked about open cases and office gossip while they ate, and he was pleased to see her practically inhale the grilled cheese sandwich and tomato soup she had ordered. Afterwards, she leaned back in the booth and yawned.

"Maybe I will finish that report in the morning. I think I'm about done in for the day."

"Good idea," he said blandly, and she kicked him lightly under the table.

"Don't think that I don't know that getting me to leave for the day was your nefarious plan all along."

"It's purely selfish, O'Hara," he assured her. "I don't want to have to correct all the mistakes you'll make if you're too tired to think straight. And Chief Vick will make you pay for your laptop if you ruin it by falling asleep and drooling on it."

"I don't drool," she said primly.

"Please. I've seen evidence to the contrary. If you'd like, I can give you a comprehensive list. There was the stakeout two years ago in the warehouse district –"

"That won't be necessary," she interrupted, grinning a little. "If you'll take me back to my car, I promise to go home and only drool on my own pillow."

As they paid for their food at the counter, he said "We don't have to go back to the station. I can take you and home and pick you up in the morning." That little voice in his head that protested spending off-duty time with O'Hara started shrieking at this, but he stomped ruthlessly on it. He had driven her home from work dozens of time over the years. It didn't mean anything.

She hesitated, but yawned again and threw up her hands in defeat. "Okay, I'll take advantage of your chauffeuring services. Take me home, Jeeves!"

She was quiet on the drive to her house, her head tilted back on the car seat like she was already dozing off. Watching her from the corner of his eye, he could see the gentle rise and fall of her chest, the exposed white column of her throat. When he realized that he was idly wondering what it would be like to press a kiss against the hollow of that throat, he forced himself to look only at the road and to think about unsexy things, like crime statistics for the neighborhood he was driving through and the recent conversation he had had with McNab about the definition of "civil war" (Buzz assumed that calling it civil meant that all the soldiers had to be polite to each other). By the time he parked in front of her house, he thought he had himself back under control.

Or maybe not, he realized, as he shook her awake and she opened her sleepy blue eyes to him, looking confused at first and then giving him a small smile, and he had to quash the desire to lean over and kiss her. "Did I sleep all the way home? I'm sorry Carlton, I must be more tired than I realized."

"Go get some rest, O'Hara," he said, while thinking please get out of my car before I do something stupid. "I'll pick you up at 8:00 in the morning."

"Okay," she agreed softly, but didn't move. His hand was still on her shoulder, and he could feel how warm her skin was underneath her blouse, and the only thought in his head was that she was beautiful and that he wanted her so much he ached with it.

"Carlton," she whispered, and he realized with horror that he was leaning towards her, like he was going to…like he was about to…he jerked away from her violently, putting both hands on the steering wheel and squeezing it hard.

"Good night, O'Hara," he said his voice strangled and his meaning clear, and he didn't look at her again as she got out of the car and shut the door, and didn't see that she stood on the sidewalk staring after him as he drove away.

Juliet hadn't been surprised when Carlton shut down her one and only attempt to talk about the kiss they had shared; the entire situation was awkward and embarrassing and it was exactly like him to pretend that it had never happened. Honestly, she had been relieved that he wasn't angry at her for taking advantage of him while they were undercover. She wouldn't have much blamed him if he hadn't wanted to work anymore with a partner who couldn't seem to keep her hands off of him lately and who had forced him into kissing her in order to maintain their cover.

At least, she had felt that way until tonight, when she had been certain that he had been about to kiss her, right there in the front seat of their police-issued Crown Vic, a spot she had never before considered the least bit romantic.

She had gone into her house in a daze, no longer the least bit tired. It was at times like this that she most missed her cats; mostly for the companionship and affection they had provided, but also for the routine she would have had to go through after a long day away: feeding them, petting them, giving them fresh water and cleaning their litter box. Mindless but meaningful tasks that would have forced her to slow down and think about something other than her partner for a few minutes.

As it was, she found herself standing in her living room, the strap of her purse still in her hand and her jacket still slung over her arm, thinking about how he had looked at her in the car, like he was starving. For her.

She had been so certain that he didn't think about her that way. She was his partner, and Carlton Lassiter was the epitome of professionalism. Except…well, he had slept with his previous partner. She remembered, in the very early days of their partnership, telling him that she didn't believe in workplace romances, and it made her want to squirm with embarrassment now, at how young she'd been. Not that her policy on dating coworkers had been wrong, just that she hadn't understood at the time that the partnership that she and Carlton had been embarking on would be more meaningful and more intimate than any romantic relationship she'd ever had.

But not as intimate as he'd been with the partner he'd had before her. Which brought her around to thinking about the kiss on the beach again, about his hands on her face, in her hair, his body pressed against hers, the memory of it making her flush all over. Goddamn that had felt good. In the days since, she had tried to suppress the memory, but with her newfound certainty that he wanted her as much as she wanted him, she didn't bother.

The question now was what to do about it. She knew that if she left it up to him, he would repress and ignore until the end of time if necessary, or, more likely, until they both got fed up with each other. There was no one better than Carlton at taking action in the field, but she knew that when it came to matters dealing with the heart, she was going to have to take the lead. She resented him a little for that, for being such a stereotypical guy and making her do the emotional heavy lifting, but when she thought about Victoria and Lucinda she considered that maybe he had good reason to wall himself off.

Right now though, it was nearly midnight, and she had to work the next day. Maybe the best thing to do would be to try not to think about it, get some sleep, and in general, exercise caution. She could gage the temperature of his mood the next day and decide what to do from there.

After spending a very short amount of time with Lassiter the next day, what she most wanted to do was sock him in the nose. He was in an epically bad temper from the moment she got into his car that morning, and she knew the reason was because he was trying to put some distance between them after the night before, but she wasn't going to let it work. Probably.

The thing was, he was mostly taking out his temper on another people, not on Juliet. Her, he seemed to be trying to ignore. Other than a curt "good morning" and a request for a file she had in her desk, he hadn't spoken to her all day except to respond when she asked him a direct question. But even before lunch he had snapped at a witness to a hit-and-run (necessitating that Juliet go behind him and apologize), nearly reduced Detective Dobson to tears (a discomfiting sight that Juliet was certain would haunt her in her dreams), and terrified a robbery suspect into a confession merely by glaring at him (okay, there was at least one upside to his mood).

The quick confession should have put him in a better mood, but he remained grouchy. They spent most of the afternoon at their respective desks, with him so blatantly trying to avoid her that one point he sent McNab over to ask her a question that he could easily have asked her himself.

Clearly, this could not stand.

Because they had worked over the weekend as well as the long shift the day before, Chief Vick sent them home early, no doubt because she was as tired as everyone else of Lassiter growling at anyone who came near him. Juliet was grateful for the afternoon and evening off, hoping that it would give her time to clear her head. She was able to go to a krav maga class, and then swim a few laps in the pool at the gym, working off some of her tension, before going home and putting together a salad for dinner. And then she sat down with a glass of wine to think.

If she did nothing, things might go back to normal in a week or two, though there would probably always be residual tension between them for all the things unsaid. Still, it wasn't a completely unappealing scenario. Her partnership with Lassiter was the most important relationship in her life, and what she was considering would throw it into complete upheaval. Did she really want that?

She thought maybe she did. She needed to be careful though, needed to make certain that she was thinking rationally about this. With that in mind, she pulled out a notebook and a pen and started a "Pros" and "Cons" list for pursuing a relationship with Carlton.

Cons
1. HE IS YOUR PARTNER.
She grabbed a pink highlighter and went over it a few times. If she screwed up her partnership with Carlton to go after something that would never work and that she only wanted because she was feeling vulnerable or lonely, she would never forgive herself.

2. He's rude, moody, arrogant
All true enough, with Exhibit A being today. However, as much as he might hate to hear it, he had mellowed over the years, so that days like today were the exception rather than the rule. And she prided herself on having learned how to handle him when he was being difficult.

3. He's a workaholic.
Yeah, well, so was she.

4. The squirrel thing.
Yes, okay, that was a little disturbing.

5. Shawn.
This one was tricky, because it brought up a lot of uncertainty in her. She and Shawn had spent so much time dancing around each other, and she had spent so long convinced that they were meant to be together, but when she had come back to work after Yin, it was like a switch had been flipped. She wasn't interested anymore.

When they had teamed up to work on the Desiree Blake murder investigation, that feeling had been confirmed. As partners, they sucked. For heaven's sake, even Gus and Lassiter, a pairing that should not work at all, seemed to make a more effective team than she and Shawn did. She spent most of the investigation being either irritated or baffled by him. At the end of it, she realized that while she would always have a great deal of affection for Shawn, whatever had been between them before, the zing that had existed, was gone. It was a little embarrassing now to look back at the past year and remember how much she had pined for Shawn while he was dating Abigail. Given her current fixation on Lassiter, she wondered if she was subconsciously sabotaging herself by wanting men that were unavailable to her.

No, she refused to believe that was true. What she was feeling now for Carlton had been building for a long time. It felt like a natural outgrowth of their partnership. Like, the first couple of years had been about them getting to know and trust each other, and the next couple of years had been about them becoming the kind of team that had them finishing each other's sentences and anticipating each other's actions in the field. And now…now she realized that she was interested in putting that teamwork to the test in other ways.

6. He's your partner, dammit.
Because that was what it all came back to; if the roles they had played over the past weekend had been real, if she really was an elementary school teacher and Carlton an insurance auditor, and she felt this way about him, there would be no question that she would ask him out, try to start a relationship. If she tried to do that here, though, she was terrified that she might burn everything they had worked so hard to build together to the ground.

Okay, enough of that. Time to put some things in the "Pro" column, before she lost her nerve completely.

1. He always has my back
She stopped and looked at the words; she had never really thought before about how true this was. The past year had been…well, Juliet was an optimist, and she preferred to look on the bright side of things, but the past year had dealt her a few blows. There was discovering that Ewan was not the hero she thought he was. There was the thing with Scott; not that she had ever seriously thought that they would end up living happily ever after, but it was still a little sad to give up that fantasy for good. And of course there was Yin, who was still out there somewhere.

Through all of those situations, Carlton had been the person by her side. He was the one who went with her to see Ewan off on the prison bus (for all the good that had done). He was the one giving her (somewhat surprisingly) good advice while she dealt with the upheaval of having Scott back in her life. And he was the one who had pushed everyone else away so that she could fall apart in private on the clock tower.

2. I trust him completely

Having grown up with Frank O'Hara's broken promises, trust wasn't something she took lightly. Lassiter never lied to her, and her imagination wasn't vivid enough to come up with a scenario in which he'd betray her.

There was also the flip side of the equation to consider, the fact that he trusted her as much as she did him, a daunting realization since trust was such a hard-won commodity from him.

3. The way he kissed me

A shallow addition to her list? Maybe. That did not make it any less true. That libido of hers that had taken an extended vacation after the clock tower had returned from Maui or wherever it had been off sunning itself all rested up and raring to go.

4. I think I might be in love with him

She stopped again, putting down her pen and notebook to go to the kitchen and pour herself another glass of wine. When had this happened? Thinking back, she wasn't sure. Maybe the more relevant question was to wonder why this had happened. Because if this was some sort of reaction to having experienced trauma…if the main reason she was attracted to Carlton was because he made her feel safe, then it would be terribly unfair of her to pursue anything more.

She drank her wine and thought about the kiss on the beach again, which hadn't felt safe at all. What she was considering would upend everything about her life right now – there was no chance that Vick would allow them to remain partners if they got personally involved, and after what had happened with Detective Barry, equally no chance that Carlton would think it a good idea to keep it a secret.

There was nothing safe about any of this.

Restlessness thrummed under her skin as she paced around the room. What if her feelings were temporary? What if she was misreading his interest? What if her reactions to kissing him had been fueled by the adrenaline of the moment and weren't real? What if she was on the verge of ruining everything? What if, what if, what if. Too many what ifs. She was a cop; she liked facts, not endless speculation.

Well, she wasn't going to uncover any facts while standing around her kitchen. She couldn't take any more navel-gazing. It was time for action. She threw on a pair of jeans and a sweater, grabbed her phone and her ID and called a cab. Not that she was drunk after two glasses of wine, but she didn't feel completely level-headed either, due more to the adrenaline coursing through her than the alcohol.

She hadn't planned out what she was going to say, but when Carlton opened the door she knew exactly what she wanted to do.

"O'Hara! What are you doing here?"

"I'm really sorry about this," she said apologetically as she stepped into the apartment, pushing the door closed behind her, "but I have to know if that was just some kind of fluke."

"If what was –" he started to ask, but was silenced when she reached up, putting her hands on either side of his face, and pulled him down to kiss her.

His immediate response answered one of her "what ifs": she was definitely not misreading his interest. His hands were on her hips pulling her in close and his mouth was hungry and eager against hers, like he had just been waiting for this moment, but after a minute or so she could practically feel his natural caution reasserting itself.

"O'Hara," he gasped, pulling away from her, "what the hell are you doing? We can't…"

She didn't let him get far, keeping her arms around his neck and kissing his jaw, then the soft skin under his ear, feeling him shudder in response.

"Think of this as a team building exercise," she suggested, before dropping her mouth to the pulse point at his neck and sucking gently, and then it was her turn to gasp when he surprised her by lifting her up and pushing her against the wall. She wrapped her legs around his waist, an action that felt as natural as breathing, and tried not to moan out loud at the sensation of him pressing against her right where she felt the most needy.

"I hate team building exercises," he growled, one hand sliding up under her sweater, warm and certain.

"I know. And if you need to convince yourself that you hate this in order to not feel guilty about it later, then I'm okay with that," she said, and kissed him again, licking into his mouth and tasting whiskey, feeling the scrape of stubble against her face, and she did moan now, because she could feel him hard against her, and the hand under her sweater was thrillingly close to breaching her bra, and his other hand had slipped down her hip to support her against the wall by cupping her bottom.

Carlton Lassiter's hand is on my ass! she thought giddily, and he's going to do me up against the wall!, and she wriggled a little, hoping to get more friction against the place where she was throbbing with want.

"O'Hara…Juliet…" Lassiter said hoarsely as he broke the kiss, "if we…if we do this, it will change everything."

A tiny bit of sanity crept into her brain, and she nodded, looking into his eyes, the pupils wide and almost completely black with arousal, and even while most of her body was pleading with her to get on with things, she appreciated the obvious effort he was putting into restraining himself.

"You're right," she said, running her fingers across his lips. "It will change everything. But Carlton, maybe it's time for everything to change."

His response was to kiss her again, and holy crap, it was probably a good thing that she hadn't known years ago that her partner could kiss like this, or her career as a rookie detective would have come to an abrupt end due to lewd behavior on the job.

She was so caught up in what it felt like to have his mouth against hers, to feel his fingers finally curving around her breast, that when she felt the vibrating sensation against her rear end her first thought was oh my god, how is he doing that?, before she realized that it was her phone, which she had tucked into her back pocket earlier. Distantly, she could hear his phone ringing as well.

"I don't fucking believe this," Lassiter said breathlessly as she scrambled to pull her phone out of her pocket, and she wasn't sure if his incredulity was aimed at the interruption or at the fact that this was happening at all. She let the phone ring a couple of more times before answering, taking two deep breaths to steady herself.

"This is O'Hara," she said, as authoritatively as she could when she still had her legs wrapped around her partner's waist and his erection pushing insistently against her thigh.

"Hi Detective, this is Buzz. Buzz McNab? There's a woman down here at the station that says she needs to talk to you and Detective Lassiter."

"What?" Juliet asked, wondering if her horniness was fogging her thinking, because Buzz wasn't making any sense. "What woman?"

"She says that her name is Arianna Vasquez, and that she wants to turn herself in, but she'll only do it to you. Sergeant Allen is trying to call Detective Lassiter, but he hasn't picked up his phone. I'm sorry, I told Ms. Vasquez that it was your night off, but…"

"It's okay, Buzz. Let Allen know that I'll tell Lassiter myself. Tell Arianna that we're on our way, and keep me updated if anything changes. We'll be down there as soon as we can."

Hanging up, she slowly and with complete reluctance unwound herself from around Carlton.

"Arianna's at the station, saying she wants to turn herself in but that she'll only talk to us."

"Right," he said. He looked away from her, rubbing his hand across his mouth.

"Hey," she said softly, "we will be picking up where we left off. We're just hitting the pause button."

"Right," he said again, sounding unconvinced. "Let me get my jacket and my holster and we can go."