A/N: So I wasn't expecting to find myself with inspiration for this at all, but boom, it happened. I'm still not sure how to progress the plot along exactly (plot is my weakest writing point, imo) to them eventually catching Thana, but I have daydreamed a really dramatic confrontation between her and Ezra a few times so hopefully we'll get there.

Also, entirely random, but any other insomniacs eventually get to the point where you find yourself embracing it and just staying up instead of trying for a bedtime routine and sleepy pills? I used to hate it, but I've recently come to realize it is a superpower. The world's most unhealthy superpower!

Thank you so much to everyone who reads and reviews, it's my bread and butter!

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It was fairly obvious that Ezra was planning to disappear again right after dinner, they all knew it. He had the easy excuse that he hadn't slept well the night before and would be healing for awhile, even with the nap Chris knew he'd taken.

The tenseness was easy enough to see in his shoulders, and if that's what he needed to make it slip away that was fine. It didn't stop the idea that maybe he was planning to hide away from them for other reasons than that, judging by the occasional wary glance he was shooting Josiah.

Not that Chris, looking over the table to see if there were any leftovers worth putting away, knew exactly what had been talked about on the porch. Josiah would never share. But it didn't change that he knew the profiler too well not to see that he'd been worried and tense about more than just the phone call with Maude. More than just what had been bothering them all since the puzzle pieces of who was after Ezra had been put together.

Still, it wasn't something he was going to get involved in-not yet, anyway. Chris drained the last of his beer, preparing to push back from the table, when JD spoke up, a bit too loud for his words to really be as casual as he was trying to sound, "Hey, 'Siah, remember when we got snowed in here after last Thanksgiving and then the power went out for so long nothing was charged but that kindle reader Chris keeps plugged in but never uses for some reason?"

"I like real books," Chris protested, not sure why he was feeling like he should defend himself.

"Not-"

"What we're learning here, folks, is that JD is still sore that Chris doesn't use the kindle he got him for his birthday-"

"No! I-"

"I use it sometimes." He did too, on trips it was nice to be able to have a bunch of books in one. Even if it was on a digital screen.

"Guuuuyyys," JD drawled out loudly, and then waited, like he wasn't expecting to be allowed to go on, until they were all looking at him expectantly, huffing a little before he started talking. "Anyways-thanks for making this weird, Buck-I was saying, remember after it got dark, but it was too early to go to bed, you read White Fang to us, Josiah?"

"I do," Josiah said with a nod, clearly getting where the kid was going with this.

"I liked that one." Vin grabbed another chicken wing while speaking, taking a bite and not swallowing before he finished his comment, "Got Call of The Wild on tape at the library after that, it's real good too."

"Yeah!" JD clearly said that a little louder than he meant to, judging by how he winced at his own volume, and carried on quieter, "I was just thinking that was nice, so maybe we could do it again? And if Josiah doesn't want to read, I bet I could find something good online for us to listen to. Um, I mean, if everybody wants to…" The glance he cast around the table was a little uncertain, and Chris looked around as well, not exactly glaring the others into agreement, but really only because he saw that he didn't have to.

So that was how they wound up all sitting around in the living room, fireplace lit, with Josiah reading aloud from Treasure Island.

It wasn't a bad way to spend the evening, even if Buck started snoring just as Israel Hands tried to stab Jim.

Chris nodded along a little impatiently to Director Travis's words, happy as he was to hear them, "Noll's family, including the in-laws, have been moved into protective custody, quite far away from their original location. Obviously, Cardamone's men will have realized by now, and know we got Noll to turn, but there's not a lot we can do about that."

"That's good news, sir. I've been worrying, know Ezra has too. But it'd be a waste of a drive, just to tell me that. You want to come in, have a cup of coffee?" See with his own eyes that Ezra and the rest of them he hadn't seen since the bomb threat were all in one piece, Chris didn't add, figuring they both knew it was understood. He stepped back out of the doorway, keeping an arm on the screen door so it didn't decide to flop closed-that was another project for the trouble magnets when they finished the tack room-and beckoned the old man in. "I promise Tanner didn't make it."

That got a laugh, and Orin across the doorway, "As long as you don't mention the coffee to Evie. I'd already had what she calls my limit about two cups ago."

"Chris can't talk, he ate leftover pizza for breakfast," JD's voice was muffled by the thick sweatshirt he was pulling over his face, a rather cheery, "Hi, Director Travis," following when his head reappeared like a jack in the box.

"Good morning, JD." The man was clearly hiding a chuckle, and Chris sighed.

"Aren't you supposed to be in the tack room?"

"It's cold out there, I needed a sweatshirt!" Chris waved him onward, diplomatically not mentioning that he'd told JD to grab something warm before he'd sent him and Vin out in the first place, or cursing when he let the front door slam behind him when he bounded back out towards the barn.

"Most of the other guys are in the den, but Ez is still asleep." Quickly bending to pick up a couch cushion that he could have sworn wasn't in the walkway five minutes ago and toss it back where it belonged, Chris showed the director through the kitchen and into the den. It sure would've been nice if he'd had a proper chance to clean up after breakfast before his boss saw it, but oh well. The main war meeting with Team 8 had already happened, and their notes were still on the whiteboard he'd dragged over from behind his desk, so they could add to them if the enquiries on both Cardamone's Kelly was putting out to the various Alphabet Soup agencies turned up anything. Barely eight in the morning, and they had already made decent progress.

His men, however...Josiah and Nathan were arguing about something that might have had to do with the case, but might not have, Chris couldn't tell. They weren't being loud, but they were being intense. Buck seemed to have decided the best way to handle this was to doodle on his notes until they wound down.

Chris wouldn't have cared, except he could see what Buck was doodling. Walking up and kicking the edge of the folding table enough to startle all three of them, and make Buck swear as his pen jumped, he drawled out, "Boys, Director Travis came to pay us a call. Quit being embarrassing." As they scrambled to look like they were productive adults, not juvenile delinquents in disguise, Chris waited until Orin was seated to head back into the kitchen and get them both some coffee. His team was entirely capable of behaving. Nathan and Josiah could even be said to be mature.

That didn't keep him from hurrying back.

Getting the director caught up didn't take as long as it might have, because they didn't have much that was new. That didn't keep the news they did have from being shocking.

"It was obvious it was someone related to or close enough to Cardamone to take his name and position, but…" The old man shook his head, taking a fortifying gulp of his coffee before continuing. "How's Standish dealing with this?" The awkward silence as they all tried to think of an answer said enough, Orin sucking in a slow breath. "That good, then?"

"I can't imagine he's even come close to processing it all," Josiah said gravely after a minute, "and other than that I can only say that we'll need to be there for him as it hits."

"Hell, he's handling it like a trooper, really. Just the craziest shit that's hit the guy in a long stream of crazy shit. Most folks would be about fit for the looney bin, dealing with something like this." Buck's matter of fact words were followed by a shrug, as if implying they were no big deal, but Chris sat there for a moment, listing to himself all the things Ezra'd had happen to him in the last 48 hours. It made him worry for his young teammate all the more, because if anything Buck's words were an understatement.

A long sip of his coffee and a moment of thought, and Chris squared his shoulders. Because he'd forgotten the first part of Buck's statement for a minute. Because Ezra wasn't folding, wasn't buckling, bending a little sure, but not breaking. Because he was strong as hell, and a mixture of pride and relief brought a small smile to his lips. This first fight, battle really, might be more of a draw than a victory-though part of Chris wanted to deny that, with all of them safe and mostly whole after a day of thinking it wouldn't end up like that.

Because just that is a victory.

And because they will damn well win the next one.

Chris wasn't at all surprised to see JD and Vin had made the tack room nice and snug, each of them sitting on a couple saddle blankets as they worked, and the small space heater pumping out plenty of heat. Would have been annoyed if they hadn't. He was surprised to see that a couple bags of feed had been appropriated for use as backrests and that JD's phone was loudly playing some kind of hokey who-dunnit radio show, the boys looking content as could be-but for all this was meant to be a punishment, they were doing as they'd been told and taking comfort where they could at the same time. This, Chris decided, was good.

Vin looked up at him, holding up a set of reins with a grin and a raised eyebrow. "This is for English ridin', not Western, where'd ya even get this cowboy?"

Chris shrugged. "Don't know. Still expect it to gleam like it's brand new when you're done." He grinned a little at the face Vin made at that and then outright chuckled as JD groaned at them both, grabbing his phone and rewinding the tape a bit.

"It's almost to the big reveal, don't ruin it," he ordered, giving them both a look as he held his finger over the screen and Chris held up his hands in an 'okay, okay' gesture. Vin, however, was not content to leave it at that.

"Ya said you'd listened to this three times before."

"Just because I know what's gonna happen doesn't mean I wanna miss it. Besides, you haven't heard it before." Hair flopped in JD's face as he argued and Chris decided to leave them to it, slipping out into the main part of the barn. It was fairly warm out here too, at least compared to outside, the loft above insulated by stacks of hay bales and the lower level heated by the warm bodies of the horses. They'd all been fed and watered hours ago, but with the ground still frozen Chris hadn't turned them out into the corral then. Now, though, was as good a time as any and he moved down the aisle to Pony's stall.