A/N: Ok, well, I know it isn't much, but considering how long it's been since I looked at this story, at least it's a start at picking it back up. I know some of you are still out there, hoping I finish this, so here's to my hoping right along with you. Enjoy this short chap :)

"Ok, we're in the car. What's so funny?" Bobby asked her a few minutes later.

"You couldn't see it?"

"See what, Alex?"

She snickered. "He looked like a bunny rabbit that was cornered. All twitchy snd mustache-y . . ."

He stared at her. "That's what had you hysterical? Geez, I thought is was something good."

"You," she announced, returning her attention to the road, "obviously haven't read enough children's books. You'd appreciate his cuteness if you had."

"Al Brown?" he asked incredulously. "Cute?"

"Bunny-rabbit cute," she clarified, glancing at him just long enough to roll her eyes at the irritation in his voice, "not go-to-bed-with cute. He's a little too . . . middle-aged for that."

"He can't be more than five or six years older than me, Eames."

Keeping her eyes forward, she grinned and patted his thigh. "You're a whole different ballgame, Bobby. You could be eighty, and you still wouldn't be middle-aged."

Catching her hand before she could pull it away, he gave it a teasing squeeze. "Thanks . . . I think."

"Oh, come on," she snorted. "Anyone who's got all his hair, is in good shape, can get by on three hours sleep a night, and has a, uh . . ." She coughed uncomfortably.

"What?" he prompted suspiciously, curious about what she had been about to say.

Unable to hold it back, she snickered. "A middle-aged guy wouldn't have been able to keep me, uh, entertained all night last night."

He had no response prepared for that, and he just blinked at her for a second before shaking his head and laughing. "Do me a favor and don't bring that up in front of Logan and Barek. Or anyone else."

"If you say so. Uh, while we're sort of on the topic, you want to call them and see if they got anything from Brooks?"

He shrugged and unclipped his phone from his belt.

xxxxxxxxxxxxx

Barek, startled out of the note-typing she was concentrating on, slapped a hand to the phone at her waist when it started vibrating, then winced when her slap forced the hard plastic holster into her hip. "Ow! Shit . . ."

"You gonna answer that?" her partner asked, leaning around his pole and raising an eyebrow. "Or just curse at it?"

"I'm answering, I'm answering." And answer it she did, although not before taking time to mutter another of her limitless list of Polish obscenities at him first. "Dupek . . . hello?"

"What's a dupek?" asked Goren on the other end. "Have I just been insulted?"

"An asshole. I was yelling at Mike, not you. What's up?"

Goren smirked to himself. He looked forward to taking more lessons from Barek's Patented Book Of Foreign Curses. "We just finished at J.T. Brown. Albert Brown claims to know nothing, although he did give us some more names we can pursue - coworkers, I mean. Did you get anything from your guy?"

"Jackass!" Eames's voice interrupted before Barek could respond.

"Let me guess," Barek laughed. "You're stuck in traffic."

"Well, we're driving. She's just yelling because a cab cut her off, though. No major traffic. We're on our way back to One PP, but -"

"Yeah, I know, you wanted to check in," she interrupted. "We just got back from Harlem. Tell Eames I think he cleaned his apartment in anticipation of us this time."

Goren dutifully relayed the message, which got a grin from his partner despite her ire at the taxi in front of them.

"Anyway," Barek continued, "Like your guy, he was able to give us some more names - except he knows everybody by screen names, not real names, and if we were lucky he was able to narrow them down to a certain state. We're going to be running some records searches for the next hour or two to try to track down who we can with the information he was able to give us, but . . ." She sighed. "This sucks. I didn't quit the FBI for this to end up back riding a desk."

Across from her, Logan peered around the pole long enough to leer at her in response to that, and she could almost hear him thinking, I can think of something else for you to ride. Rolling her eyes, she threw a handy pen at him.

"Well, we're not going to have too exciting an afternoon, either," Goren was telling her when she started paying attention again. "How about Eames and I pick up lunch for all of us and we can be bored together while we eat?"

"Sounds like a plan. What kind of food are you thinking?"

"Soup!" Alex yelled in the background. "Hale And Hearty!"

"Soup's fine," Barek said before Goren could ask her. "But you better get a lot. I'm starving, and if I'm starving, I'm surprised my partner isn't gnawing on my arm yet." That earned her another leer, and this time she threw an eraser at him.

"We'll get one of each flavor," Goren assured her. "We should be there in about twenty minutes. Try not to let him gnaw on you before then."

Barek couldn't help herself. Logan's comical leering coupled with Goren's unintended innuendo sent her into a gale of laughter. "Sounds . . ." she managed to gasp into the phone, "like a . . . plan. See you then!" And before Goren could respond, she snapped the phone shut, dropped it on her desk, and glared at her partner. "Stop that, Mike Logan!"

"Who, me? I'm just trying to settle on which arm I'm going to pick . . ."

She slewed her eyes to the side, checking that there was no one within close earshot, then leaned forward and smiled silkily at him."You behave yourself, buddy, and you can sample them both tonight."

Logan's eyes widened. She rarely referred to their relationship in the office outside of joking in conversation with Eames. Deciding to take it as a good sign, he just grinned at her and - very subtly - licked his lips.

It got the point across. Barek's face turned a rather becoming shade of red and she made a show of staring at her laptop screen.

"Gotcha," he whispered, and settled back down to the work he had been doing.