C.J slept better than she had a long time. She arrived at the West Wing early to begin a search of all unusual deaths in the area in the last month, at least. The police still hadn't said anything about the nature of Charles Owens's death and press had to have the information soon.

Donna was at her desk staring in to space as C.J passed. She was able to study the younger woman for a moment before Donna looked up at her and smiled wanly.

"Hey, how are you?" C.J asked.

"I have no idea," Donna said. "I had another dream. A woman, dark hair, in a fight in a prison. Normally I wouldn't dwell, except now it might mean something. If it were a normal dream I would put it down to the fight we had last night, except that that shouldn't have happened either. And even if all of this is true, it shouldn't have happened. I don't know what's going on at all, and Josh took the Murray file home with him by mistake and I need to proof read it before his meeting."

C.J smiled. Donna sounded more annoyed about the last than worried about the first complaints. Donna narrowed her eyes at C.J.

"Did we really go out last night to stake vampires?" she asked.

"We killed four of them," C.J said, matter-of-factly.

"Okay. And we don't know anything yet about the demon?"

C.J sighed. "That's Watcher stuff. We kill it once we know what it is."

"And we don't ask questions?" Donna prodded, not liking C.J's pensive bitterness.

C.J sat down on the edge of Donna's desk and leaned against the partition. She closed her eyes.

"I don't know how to do this. I didn't know how to do it then when it was all I had to do. But, no, it's not as bad as that. 'Keep going', that's it really. I'm going to go now and see if I can find any more unexplained deaths and then I'll talk to Caroline Owens before I give my briefing. Sometime today I will yell at Toby, and that will make me feel better."

Donna laughed at the mischievous look on C.J face.

"What are you two doing here, laughing in my office," Josh demanded, striding down the hall towards them. Donna grabbed his backpack off him and began rifling through it. He raised eyebrow at her, but directed the question at C.J.

"You don't really want to know why it was were laughing, do you, Joshua?"

Josh looked suspiciously from C.J to Donna. Donna grabbed the Murray from the bag and waved it Josh's face triumphantly. Josh tried to bat it out of the way, but ended up taking a couple of steps back.

C.J crumbled into hysterics.

"Josh?" Sam's voice came down the hall.

Josh looked up him, glad he wasn't laughing too.

"We've got the thing now?" Sam said, hoping Josh had remembered.

"Oh, right, yeah," Josh said.

He looked at Donna suspiciously again. C.J was still laughing. Sam frowned at her.

"What thing?" Donna asked.

"Well, we were planning to overthrow the government," said Sam.

"But then we remembered that we were the government," Josh added.

"So we have to think of what else we can do," Sam finished.

C.J started laughing more. Josh and Sam looked at her with as much dignity as they could put on and left.

"C.J?" Donna asked.

C.J nodded, taking calming breaths. "I know. Stop laughing. Prepare for briefing."

"C.J, Leo called to say that Mrs Owens will be coming to speak to you before your briefing," Carol said, appearing at her boss's side.

That sobered C.J quickly. Both Carol and Donna gave her sympathetic smiles as she left to tidy her office somewhat and put her thoughts in order.