SATURDAY

Seven am she wakes with a start and a groan, her body twitching to life in his arms. Her hair is folded up under her head, strands sticking out and lying across her face, and her tank top is rumpled up at her waist. "I was asleep," she says, amazed. "I actually slept. Not well, and I'm still tired, but I did."

"Good."

She smiles at him and stretches in his arms. Muscle tensing, tightening, relaxing under skin. He lets her go.

"Did you sleep any more?"

He turns his face into the pillow so he can't see the way her bare shoulder peeks out from where the straps of her tank top have fallen down. "No."

Her face is just inches from his on the pillow. "I don't want to get up."

"Me either." Almost an entire week of screwed up sleep—more so screwed up than normal. He's not sure he's capable of getting up. "Let's stay in today."

Eames wiggles beside him in that awakening pattern of rediscovering muscles and feeling the sheets slide against skin and soaking up body-heat generated warmth. "But I'm hungry."

"You're hungry," he murmurs. "For what?"

"Mmmm…I don't know. I was thinking about muffins from the deli, but I don't want to get up."

"Just want to stay in bed all day."

"Exactly."

He thinks about how Eames wants to stay in his bed all day, and then he gets up. "I'll be right back."

"Where're you going?" she murmurs sleepily. "Stay here."

"Be right back."

Half an hour later he's back in bed, bag of muffins and coffee (decaf) in hand. Eames is dozing, but she snaps awake when she feels him slide under the covers beside her.

"Hi, sleepy."

"Mmmmph." But she sits up. Her hair sticks to her face. "I smell muffins."

"Blueberry and chocolate chip. I went all out."

She reaches across him for the bag. "Thank you."

He nods, giving her a quick grin, and then they prop themselves up against the headboard and proceed to their breakfast in bed. Eames clicks on the tv so they can watch the news and it feels so normal, so…comfortable. Like home. Like a home home. Crumbs in bed and no one cares. Saturdays off. Snuggly blankets. Warmth. A lazy day stretching out before them.

And someone to share it with.

He finishes his muffin before Eames and then scrunches back down under the blankets, preparing to close his eyes in all this nice safe daylight in the even nicer even safer shadow of Eames above him.

"Hand me the remote, Bobby. I forgot that this anchor gets on my nerves."

"You had it last."

"I think it's in the blankets somewhere."

He starts pawing through the covers, exhaustion making his movements labored and heavy. "I'm not seeing it, Eames. Are you sure—" His hand lands on her bare leg, high up on her thigh so he can just feel the rustle of the edge of her shorts against his fingers. He stops breathing. Skin so smooth and warm. In one brief second he thinks he can feel the throb of her heart, the pulse of her blood moving through her veins; he thinks he can feel cells dividing and multiplying; he thinks he can feel everything that makes her Alex, her mind and her thoughts and her heart all through this patch of leg he never wants to let go of—

"Oh. Sorry." He takes his hand away. Breathes, a bit unsteadily.

"I found it." Eames holds the remote up and continues chewing, as if nothing happened.

"Good."

He eases further down under the covers, suddenly wide awake.

"Let's go back to sleep," Eames murmurs, sliding down beside him. "Stay here the whole day. We have muffins—what more could we need?"

He tries to smile but fails. A muscle starts jerking in his leg, and he's getting restless. "I don't know."

His arm is falling asleep. He tries positioning it behind his head, but that's uncomfortable, so he drapes it across his stomach, which is also uncomfortable. He thinks about tucking it at his side, but Eames' leg is right there again, her waist and the curve of her hip, and he'd probably brush against her during the tucking.

The bed, once so desirable and comfortable, is now confining.

"Stop fidgeting."

"Sorry."

He can't get his head to a comfortable position. He shifts on the pillow, and then shifts again.

"Bobby."

"Sorry."

He rolls over on to his side, changes his mind and flips on to his back. Side, again. Then back.

"Bobby!"

"I can't get comfortable."

"Just find a spot and lay still."

Side.

Back.

Will this never end?

Eames grabs his arm and pulls it around her waist, tugging him over on to his side facing her. His hand accidentally slips up under her shirt--and there's her back, taut muscles and soft skin under his fingers; it feels just as good as her thigh.

He is not supposed to be having these thoughts about his partner. Especially not this week, after she's just confessed to him how she's still grieving for Joe.

"Are you comfortable now?" she demands.

"Are you?"

His hand is still on her back.

"I'm all right."

"Well all right then."

Hand still there.

Her hand…her hand slips up under his shirt.

"We match now," she mutters, and she sounds embarrassed and determined all at the same time. She won't look him in the eyes.

He shifts closer to her. "I like matching."

"I can think of another way we can match," she whispers.

"Hmmm…really?"

"I told you why I haven't been sleeping."

"And you want me to tell you the same," he sighs.

"See, we do match. You can read my mind."

"Can you read mine now?"

She thinks for a long minute, her eyes searching his. Her hand moving faintly over his back. "It's something…significant. Something that's impacted you deeply. I think it happened over the weekend, because you've been off ever since Monday."

"Sunday," he whispers. "It happened Sunday. An anniversary, of sorts."

"Keep going," she prods, but he shakes his head. "All right. It's not a birthday. Or…a death day. Unless there's someone I don't know about?"

He shakes his head.

"It's not something recent, because I would have noticed last year that something was up. So it's been a while, but this year it's a specific number, an important number, ten or twenty years."

"Forty."

"Forty years ago," she murmurs. "You would have been seven." She stops, and bites her lip, and he knows she has it. "Your mother. It's when the schizophrenia started."

"Yeah." His voice is hoarse.

"You remember the exact day?"

"Yeah." He doesn't elaborate. It's a story for another time, when he has more energy and can properly think again.

"Oh, Bobby." She shakes her head, and her fingers convulse in on his back. "I'm sorry."

"I'm sorry for Joe," he whispers.

She wraps her other arm around him and they both, stories told, fall off into sleep for the rest of the day and into the night.

A/N. One more day to go.