Darien woke up with a small groan from the pain now in his neck and back from sleeping in the chair. He sat up, sliding his feet back on the table but not putting them on the floor yet. He put a hand on the back of his neck in an attempt to rub the pain away, when he paused as what he saw who was on the couch.

Bobby and Claire were both asleep, cuddled together. He coughed to try and wake them up, but neither of them moved. He silently counted to three, then took his feet off the table and slammed into the floor with a loud thud, which woke both his sleeping friends.

"Good Morning," he said as Claire sat up, sleepily yawing while Hobbes put an arm on the back of the couch to pull himself up, and looked over at Darien's smirk with a look of confusion.

"Sleep well?" he asked Hobbes.

"Fawkes..." he gave his partner an annoyed look.

"What....oh, Darien, really," Claire said as she finally caught up to the joke and stood up and walked into the kitchen.

"So...you two are getting along very well recently," Darien said leaning back in the chair.

"She was upset Fawkes, I was just comforting her."

"*Just* comforting her?"

"Yes, I was just comforting her."

"You spent the whole night on the couch comforting her, or was this just the last stop?" Darien joked, smiling when Hobbes shot him a glare.

"You really are a kid you know that? You ack like you're a fricking five year old....."

"Hey, five year olds don't even know about this stuff, and when did this become about me? I'm not the one who spent the night 'comforting' Claire."

"Fawkes...." Hobbes warned when the phone rang. Claire walked back out of the kitchen with a bag of ground coffee and picked it up.

"Hello?" she said into the receiver while the two men watched. She listen for a minute, then dropped the back, it's contents spilling across the floor as a look of horror crossed her face. After a few moments, she said a quiet 'We'll be there soon' and hung up.

"What happened?" Hobbes said as he stood up and walked over to her. She swallowed hard, took a few deep breaths, then look him straight in the eye.

"They found Eberts body," she said simply.

"Where?" Darien asked as he stood up.

"In the Official's office....they found the Official in the same place..." she trailed off.

"What happened to the Official?" Darien asked.

"He had a heart attack in his office....but they suspect it was induced by an injection. There running more tests. As of now, the Agency is officially suspending all activities until this case is solved," Claire told the two.

"Then lets go solve it," Darien said.

"Were not to go in. They think were in danger, so were to stay at home," Claire said.

"Who's running this investigation?" Hobbes asked angrily.

"In cases like this, it falls to another agency...." she trailed off, then just sighed and anwsered him. "The F.B.I."

"I'm not staying here while those mooks try and handle this," Hobbes replied. "Besides, we aren't gonna be any safer here than anywhere else, if this person is after us, they probably already know where we live. I think the best way to stop this is to get them first."

"I agree with you Hobbes, I don't want to stay around here and wait for them to come after me," Darien replied, then they both looked at Claire, waiting to see what her opinion was.

"Let's get them," she said.

--------------

"I need to get as many samples as possible to test, I might be able to find something that the killer left behind, blood, hair, anything. I can run a check through Alex's old computer for a match," Claire said as they walked from the keep towards the Officials' office. "I can test everything in the keep, it should be done in less than an hour."

The reached the office and walked inside, and Claire faltered. The bodies were no longer in the room, but the chalk outlines and blood everywhere was enough. She shakily stared forward, deciding to start with the place where Eberts body had been found first.

"This is just wrong...." Hobbes said as he looked around. There was police tape outside the doorway they had walked under to get in, and to say the least, the office was splattered in blood.

"This is very wrong," Darien said as he walked in after the other two, looking around the office with a look of disgust.

Claire was ignoring them, and taking a few samples. She wanted to get this part done as soon as possible. She had gotten the samples around Eberts, form, then moved where she was there and started on collecting some samples from around the Officials desk.

"I need to get these down to the lab to get the tests started," Claire said. "Then I can come back up and get some more."

"Okay, let's go," Hobbes said. He walked in front of Claire while Darien followed behind, looking at everything with suspicion as they made there way down to the keep. The booth stood by, Hobbes eyeing the door suspiciously the entire time.

"Alright, this will take at least half an hour before we can put them into the computer for analysis," Claire said turning to the two men.

"So were gonna go get the rest of the samples?" Darien asked.

"I don't want to leave these here," Claire said.

"I can stay and watch them till you get back," Hobbes said.

"I don't want to leave you alone Bobby..." Claire said trailing off.

"I'll be fine Claire," he said getting his gun out. "Trust me."

"Fine, but I still don't like this, we won't be long," she said getting what she needed and walking out with Darien.

"He'll be fine Claire, Hobbes can take care of himself," Darien said putting a hand on her shoulder as they walked. She just sighed and nodded slightly. They walked the rest of the way in silence. When they got into the office Claire just started going about collecting more samples.

"What was that?" Darien suddenly said turning to look at the door.

"What was what?" Claire asked standing up and turning around to face the same way Darien had been. Darien started to quicksilver, and then disappeared from sight.

"Stay here Claire, I'll be right back," Darien said before the door opened quietly, then shut again. Claire reached into the bag that was with her and pulled out her gun, then decided she might as well finish getting the samples while he was gone.
She paused when she got to a sample behind the desk, it was discolored. She bent down to look at it more closely, and sucked in a quick breath. There were quicksilver flakes mixed in with the dried blood.