Author's Note: I'm really enjoying writing this one…


Well, that was a bust... Okay. Inaccurate word choice. Actual 'busts' were quite productive as a rule, yielding viable suspects and evidence. Instead they'd wound up knocking on a locked door to an apparently vacant house, doing a complete walk of the perimeter, finding the place sealed up tight with no sign of life. They'd promptly put a BOLO out for Anthony Dunphy's silver '05 Accord, thinking that he might've run if he'd committed Rebecca Sisson's murder -yes, Dr. Wade's autopsy had ruled the death a homicide... She'd been stabbed three times with an implement the coroner was currently trying to determine the nature of.

Agent Brody plopped down at her desk in front of a large pile of phone records that they'd requested from the base, which apparently Lieutenant Watkins had dropped off while the two NCIS agents were off on their wild goose chase. Merri looked up to see if her partner was sorry for missing the attractive Naval security officer (and to harass him about it), but apparently he hadn't been directly on his fellow agent's boot heals, which was a change for the pattern their partnership had taken on the last few days... Well, weeks or months, really. It had been a gradually increasing intimacy that she couldn't quite pinpoint the precise beginning of, and didn't especially care to dwell upon.

Pride was currently sitting at his own desk, and by the sounds of it trying to coordinate the BOLO on Anthony Dunphy. Local LEOs apparently were unclear about the threat level the man posed. 'Wanted for questioning' seemed not quite enough to cover it. But neither could they officially say 'primary murder suspect' since there was no actual evidence... yet. But perhaps these phone records would yield results. Rebecca's cell had proven fruitless when it came to the internet (and likely real-life) stalker, despite Patton Plame's giving it his most thorough of scourings.

Not one to give up, he'd gone back to the 'deep web' to discover as much information about Anthony Dunphy as possible. And since the good old leg work hadn't proven any results this time around, Merri had to admit solving the case currently lay much more within the ex-hacker's purview. Well, they could all do their part with the tedious desk work, she supposed, as she turned her attention to the inch thick stack of paper, lists upon lists of phone numbers which made calls to the base office where Rebecca Sisson served as what was basically secretary and receptionist. Merri'd begun to highlight all of the calls that didn't have a number indicating they'd originated from within the base when a shadow fell across the page, making her blink as her eyes unfocused.

She looked up to find her fellow agent hovering.

"I think these belong ta ya," LaSalle said, pulling a scrap of blue fabric out of his jacket pocket and tossing it on the desktop in front of her. At first, she was entirely clueless as to what the hell he was talking about. But then recognition struck her like a bolt of lightning striking a dead tree and she burst into flame.

"Why do you have a pair of my underwear, Chris?!"

Volume control was beyond her capacity. As was maintaining a civil tone. She'd had enough. Absolutely enough. This was beyond forgivable. Had he gone through her things when she let him stay in her home?! Maybe when she was asleep, or in the shower, pawing through her underwear drawer like some sort of perv?

"I found 'em sittin' on the passenger seat in my truck," he said, his eyes gone wide over her outburst. "I figured they fell outta your bag when I drove ya home this mornin'."

Having finished his discussion with NOPD, Pride had noticed the verbal skirmish between his agents, and approached cautiously, but his presence only fueled the ire Merri felt bubbling up uncontrollably. Now their boss was involved? And how did it sound to the older man? Her male counterpart returning her -god help her- lace panties that she'd left in his truck after he'd driven her home in the morning. If Pride didn't know the specifics of the circumstances leading up to the situation, she would've been downright mortified. She was embarrassed enough that the extremely racy scrap of cloth that she chose to cover her bare ass with was out in the open for everyone to see. There was a reason they were called 'intimates', that being that they weren't in point of fact meant for everyone to see. They were part of her private life, her private business, which LaSalle had no right to be in, submerged in, swimming the fucking backstroke and singing 'Sweet Home Alabama' in...

"What's the problem?" Pride asked in his 'negotiator' tone, which Merri found she had little more tolerance for than Christopher LaSalle's face at the moment.

"Him." She seethed, pointing an accusing finger at the younger man. "I can't take it anymore! He has no boundaries, absolutely none! Just because he thinks he's the most charming thing since the Horgi!"

Pride's eyebrows shot up, in apparent shock over her losing her cool. But she was honestly beyond caring any more.

"He makes me want to scream!"

"That much is apparent, Agent Brody," the senior agent said. "Why don't you take those phone records to the conference room, and work in some peace and quiet for the rest of the day."

His tone was so unerringly reasonable that it caused her to pause a moment. She closed her eyes, breathed deeply, felt the heat of the rage dissipate slightly. When she opened her eyes, she nodded once at Pride and gathered up the paperwork she'd been previously perusing, shoving the lace underwear in her pocket first.

She avoided looking directly at LaSalle, but the expression on his face was apparent even just catching it out of the corner of her eye. He looked like an overly affectionate, clumsy puppy that had just been kicked by the person it loved most in the world.

It made her feel guilty, but then she remembered how that lovable innocence was part of the charm that allowed him to get away with things he shouldn't. As she made her way upstairs with her face firmly set against being coerced into forgiveness, she overheard her partner speak in a forlorn tone he never even used when speaking about his brother's illness.

"What d' I do, King? I didn't realize I'd been pushin' her so bad."

"Just give her some space. Leave her be for the rest of the day. Then talk to her about how you can better respect her boundaries… when she's ready to talk, that is."

"I been with her every minute for the past couple days, apparently drivin' her crazy. She must hate me."

"I don't think she hates you, Christopher. Agent Brody's just a very... private person. And you can be a mite... friendly."

"Yeah... Suppose so…"

Merri let the door close behind her, already cursing herself for her outburst. How embarrassing was that, losing control of her temper just because LaSalle wanted to be her friend? Why was she such a horrible person?

No. She wasn't a bad person. It was just the way she was. And she had every right to be that way. Just because Chris LaSalle couldn't pick up the social cues that she didn't want him about five inches from her face every minute of the day... If his feelings had been hurt, it was his own fault.

She pulled a chair out and sat down with an audible thump at the conference table. She looked at the next phone number on the list, couldn't remember the in-house prefix, saw the hurt expression on Chris LaSalle's face in her mind's eye, threw the highlighter across the room, causing it to hit the glass with a very loud thwunk, and sprung back out of her chair to pace about.

This was ridiculous! Absolutely ridiculous. She'd never had a problem working with other NCIS agents before. Okay, untrue. She'd disliked a good number of them, clashed with a few of them, but had never been so distracted, so fricken conflicted before, to the degree where she couldn't even focus on her work. Because she cared. If she simply hated the man or found him obnoxious and intolerable, then she might get in arguments with him, curse his name, but then focus on her job, get it done her way, prove her way was the right way, and end of story.

But no. LaSalle had annoyed her, she blew up at him, and now was riddled with guilt over hurting him. It was because she'd let him get too close, become entwined in her life in ways she did not desire. Distance. Some distance was the key.

If he got the message, which he apparently hadn't been receiving at all despite all the obvious signals she'd been sending (but hopefully Pride had finally translated), then maybe LaSalle would back off, and they could go back to getting along and working well with each other.


A/N: Will they be able to go back to a professional, genial working relationship? Or have things already gone too far?