It feels late when I wake up, and I open my eyes to find that I'm on my couch, under the spare blanket. The wall clock tells me it's quarter to ten, and I blink in surprise. It's a long time since I've slept this far into the morning.

Mac's still asleep, as I see when I quietly push open the bedroom door. He's in exactly the same position as he was last night, except that his face looks a lot more peaceful now. I find myself smiling at him as I collect a change of clothes from the cupboards, as quietly as I can, although I suspect he'd sleep through a lot more noise than I'm currently making. When I leave the room I push the door almost closed, so that it rests against the edge of the frame, but so that hopefully I'll be able to hear when he wakes up. In the kitchen I put the kettle on and dial a number on my cell phone. It's answered almost at once.

"Hawkes."

"It's Stella."

"Good, I hoped you'd call soon. How's Mac?"

"Still asleep."

"I'm not surprised, to be honest."

"Have you got the results back from tox yet?"

"Yep, a while ago." There's a pause, and I suppose he's looking for the printout. "Here we go. He was definitely drugged, with a benzodiazepine. Temazepam. I'd say about 30mg, that would be consistent with him being dosed with it about two hours before the blood sample was taken. Does that sound like the right timeline?"

I think about it for a second. "That would probably be about half an hour after I spoke to him. Sounds about right."

"Ok, we'll run with that. Oh, and that case file's definitely been taken. We've been looking all through Mac's office, anywhere it might be, and we checked everywhere else we could think of too. He didn't show it to Sid, or file it with the state attorney, or anything else."

"Damn," I say. I carry my mug of coffee back into the living room and curl up on the couch. "So I'm guessing that the running theory is that someone was hanging around waiting for Mac to leave, and when it became obvious that he wasn't, they drugged him and then just walked into his office and took the file from his desk."

"Something like that. One of the coffee cups in his office tested positive, so we know how, we just have to work out who did it."

"Who else was on the case? The file?"

"Lindsay, but it was her night off so she was home early. Mac did all the form-filling, and she's been giving us all the details she knows. I'll fill you in later."

"Sure. So is Mac going to be ok?"

"Yeah, he'll be fine. Actually, if you hadn't gone in there to try and wake him up, no one might have noticed that he'd been doped at all, we'd just have taken the fact that he would probably still be asleep at his desk when we arrived in the morning as due to the non-existent amount of sleep he usually gets."

"He looked terrible last night."

"That's normal if you try to wake up someone who's ingested that amount of temazepam two hours previously! I think you should be impressed that he did."

"Good," I say, relieved. "What time should I come in?"

Hawkes chuckles slightly. "My superior is asking me for orders?"

"For today only," I warn him.

"Keep an eye on Mac. Come in when you think that it's a good idea. We're good here for the moment I think, we'll call you if we need to."

"Ok. I'll see you soon then."

"Great. I got to go now, bye."

"Bye."

As I dress I'm running through the night's events in my head, trying to remember anything that would be helpful to this investigation. The trouble is, it's a big building and I often hardly notice who's moving on our floor. Add to that the fact that I was in one of the labs between the official end of shift and when I went to find Mac, and I'm no sort of witness at all.

I feel completely helpless. Someone drifted into our lab with the night-time shadows and slid easily past all the checks meant to prevent these eventualities. Last night I was thinking about the knife-edges fate throws at you, and that edge seems very close to all of our feet right now. It's all very well to pack a bag to be left at a friend's, but when you've come to where there was such a thin gap between losing that friend altogether it seems silly, pointless, children playing a game. Bang, one life gone.

This is a bad trail of thought to go down, so I find the case-files I brought home the other evening to work on, and didn't finish. If I'm going to be here all day I may as well do something useful. I force myself to concentrate, shutting off all other trains of thought and bolting the doors. Write. Don't think.

Maybe two or three hours go by, when I hear the pad of bare feet in the hall. I get up from the desk as Mac comes into the room. He stands just inside the door, uncertainty on his face.

"Hey," I say softly. "How're you feeling?"

"Tired," he says. "Confused. What are we doing here?"

"What do you remember?"

"Uh… Being at work… People shouting. It's all…blurred." He stops. "Did you slap me?"

I chuckle, and feel myself blush slightly at the same time. Yes, hehad to remember that. "Yes. Sorry. Do you remember anything else specifically?"

"No." His face creases with the effort of remembering. "What happened?"

I sigh, reluctant to have this conversation right now. "I brought you back here last night," I say, answering his first and least important question.

"Stell," he says. "What's going on?"

I sit in the armchair and gesture for him to take the couch, which he does. "Well. Someone drugged you and stole the Berrow case-file."

He blinks. "Last night?"

"Yes. We think it must have been at around ten o'clock; we found you at midnight."

"When you say 'we'…"

"Me and Hawkes. I tried to wake you up to tell you to go home and, well, you wouldn't wake up. That was why I slapped you; I was sort of hoping you wouldn't remember that. I called Hawkes."

"You said the file's been stolen? It didn't get taken to the state attorney's office?"

"No, we looked everywhere when you noticed it wasn't on your desk anymore. You said that there was something Sid needed to sign, so it definitely hadn't been filed, and I spoke to Hawkes earlier and he confirmed it. It's gone."

"I told you that? I don't remember…"

"Don't worry about it, it's not surprising. Hawkes took a blood sample from you last night and you had 30mg of temazepam in your system. Apparently amnesia's a common side effect, and anyway, I don't really think I can class the state you were in at the time as 'awake'."

"Oh." He sits back and I can see him digest the information. He presses the reddish area on the inside of his elbow. "I don't remember that either."

"You remember me slapping you, but not Hawkes sticking a needle in your arm?"

"Beggars can't be choosers."

I laugh. "Glad to see you've got your sense of humour back. Would you like anything to eat? Or drink?"

"Yes please."

"Which was that?"

"Both, if you don't mind. Can I use your shower?"

"Course. Your stuff's still in your bag; it's on the floor by the bed."

"Thanks."

I let him get up and leave the room, and wait to hear the bathroom door close, before getting up myself. Back in the kitchen I open and shut cupboards, deciding in the end that tomato soup and bread will do. The tin opener keeps sticking. It doesn't usually. I butter several slices of bread, rather unevenly, and cut the pile in half. The halves are jagged.

The soup heats up on the stove. Bubbles build up slowly under the surface and burst, almost in slow motion, throwing drops of the thick red liquid into the air, to fall back down and leave mini craters in the surface which persist for a few seconds. Then again. It's mesmerising to watch. I feel my eyes beginning to sting.

"Stella?"

I didn't hear him come in, but now he's right behind me. "Yeah?"

"Are you ok?"

I snap back into the present and blink quickly. "I'm fine. Lunch is ready."

We're both almost silent during the meal. There's only one topic on our minds at the moment, and neither of us feel like discussing it. As I'm carrying the crockery to the sink, the phone rings. Mac leaves the room and answers it. I pile the items I'm carrying into the sink to wash up later, and go to see who it is, managing to catch the tail end of the conversation.

"Yeah, I'll tell her. Bye."

"Who was that?" I ask.

"Danny. He wants to know if you can come in to work."

"Sure, I'll just get my stuff."

I collect the files from my desk and my coat from the back of a chair. Mac is waiting by the front door, clearly dressed to go outside. I fold my arms.

"What?" he asks.

"Are you serious?" I ask.

"Why wouldn't I be?"

"You promised Hawkes…" I begin, but he cuts me off.

"I don't remember that, do I?" he says, a smirk playing around the corners of his mouth.

I sigh, knowing that I'm not going to win here. "Ok, ok. Let's go and find a cab."

A/N: I hope you're still enjoying this! Let me know what you think, and thank you for everyone who's been reviewing. Blue x