We were smart and remembered to set the alarm clock this time; as a result, instead of waking up with only minutes to spare and panicking, we wake up with plenty of time...and still panic, kind of.

The alarm buzzes at 7 am and, before I even open my eyes, I'm aware that something's different. There's a woman pressed against me; I can feel her warm skin. Sara's curled up in my arms. We made love last night.

Things have changed.

I'm not sure how much they've changed, or exactly what compartments of our lives have changed, so instead of moving, which would officially start my day, I just open my eyes. Her eyes are also open, and they lock on mine within seconds. Her gaze is steady and direct, but I notice that she doesn't move anything other than her eyes, either.

We lay there for a minute, staring at each other, knowing that when we move, this tentative peace will evaporate.

Time passes.

My mind races. What is she thinking? Did she want this? Is she disgusted?

Finally, Sara speaks: "Is this bad?" Her voice is soft, but matter-of-fact. I can't read any particular emotions from it.

"Are you asking me if I regret this?"

She sighs; I feel her breath on my arm as she exhales. "More or less."

Do I regret this? No, but I don't want to make myself vulnerable by admitting it before I know how she feels. "Well, do you regret it?"

Her eyes narrow. "Don't turn the question around. You know I hate that."

Cornered. What did I expect? I sit up, careful not to pull the sheets off of her when I shove them off of myself. "No, Sara, I don't regret doing this." I think I see her shoulders relax a little, but they tense up again when I add, "But I do kind of regret doing this now."

"'Now?' Like, you wish we had waited a few more years?"

I shake my head. "No, that's not what I mean. I mean that I regret doing this before I - we - had figured out where it would go and how we would handle it."

She blinks and takes a second to digest that. "So...you're not going to bolt on me?"

"No," I say. "I'm harder to scare than you seem to think. I'm not going to scream like a little girl, either. "

She relaxes enough to giggle at that. "You remember me saying that?"

"Of course. I remember wondering which of us you were talking about."

She reaches up and pulls on my arm, urging me to lay down again. "Well, you don't see me screaming."

I allow her to force me down and watch with interest as she rolls onto her side and reaches out a hand for me. "You're right," I say after observing her for a long moment. "You're definitely not screaming."

Her hand touches my cheek. "Mmm, well, at least not that kind of screaming."

My eyes widen as I remember what kind of screaming she was doing last night. I clear my throat and will my body to behave. "Good thing. It would annoy the neighbors," I joke lamely.

A smile starts to spread over her face. "I can do that without screaming, too, you know."

"Oh?"

"Want me to show you?"

I look over my shoulder at the clock, then back at her. "As much as I'd love to..."

"...we have a workshop to attend," she finishes for me. "I know, I know."

She really does know me too well. I chuck her under the chin and say, "But...I could use some help scrubbing my back in the shower. Multitasking is important for the successful CSI, you know."

x

x

x

I'm dressed before Sara is today, so while I wait for her, I pick up the phone and call Sharon. She did us a favor yesterday, we owe her one.

After nine rings, I'm just getting ready to hang up when she answers. "Hello?"

"Sharon, it's Gil."

"Hey, you guys are up this morning!"

I grimace. "Yeah. we learned our lesson. Actually, I was going to offer to bring you and Alex breakfast, since you got ours yesterday."

"Hold on." I hear the muffled clunk of a hand being placed over the phone, then some murmuring. A few seconds later, she's back. "That would be great, thanks. Were you going anywhere in particular to get the food?"

"I figured Dunkin Donuts would do again."

"Sounds good. Grab me a french vanilla coffee and a boston cream donut." She pauses and I hear more whispering. "And tea with sugar and a plain bagel for Alex."

I smirk. Seems like there was more than one sleepover going on last night. "Ok, we'll meet you downstairs a little before nine. Oh, and Sharon?"

"Yeah?"

"You might as well just ask him out loud, I know he's there." I hang up with the phone still reverberating with her laughter.

Sara, with her usual impeccable timing, exits the bathroom dressed in a towel only moments after I hang up. "Morning," she says with a smile.

"Again?"

"Yeah. This one is the no-bad-breath 'good morning'."

I wave a hand dismissively. "Ah, you smelled just fine."

She walks over and gives me a light kiss on the cheek. "Thanks."

I just give her a smile. "We're bringing Sharon and Alex breakfast this morning, so you better hurry up and get some clothes on."

"Or what?" she threatens playfully.

"Or I'm leaving you behind and you don't get any food. You're holding up the operation here!"

She rolls her eyes, smiles at me, and drops the towel.

x

x

x

Sharon and Alex seem to be running as late today as Sara and I were yesterday; at 8:58 they step out of the elevator looking like they've been running around all morning. Sharon's hair, rather than being styled and wavy like it usually is, is pulled back into a ponytail; Alex looks like he jumped out of the shower and threw on clothes, and one of his shoes is still untied.

"You guys look put together," Sara says with just a hint of sarcasm.

Sharon draws in a deep breath, lets it out, and demands, "Coffee!"

"Yes ma'am," I say, handing her the paper bag containing their food. "One french vanilla and one tea, as requested."

"I love you!" she sighs, fluttering her eyelashes.

I'm proud of Sara: she kicks my heel but keeps the pleasant expression on her face.

"What's on the agenda for today?" Alex asks as he waits impatiently for Sharon to relinquish the bag.

"Field trip!" Sara says excitedly. "We're supposedly being taken to precincts around the city to observe interviews and practice using the lie-detecting techniques."

I look at her, wondering how she knows that when I don't. She grins and waves a paper copy of the agenda at me. "They were by the door of the ballroom yesterday. You just didn't notice."

Through a mouthful of donut, Sharon mumbles, "Observing interrogations? We could do that at home."

"But does Barstow get as interesting a variety?" Alex points out as he cracks open the lid on his tea.

"True."

"I think it will be interesting to do the observation in a mixed group," I say. "Normally, it's only one or two people watching, but with four or five of us I think there'll be a more interesting intellectual dynamic."

"An 'intellectual dynamic'?" Sara echoes doubtfully.

Sharon swallows her bite of donut and says, "I think he means we can brainstorm."

I nod. "Right."

There's a lull in the conversation as Sharon and Alex inhale their breakfasts. When I notice that Sharon has swallowed her last bite and is in no danger of choking, I take the opportunity to say, "So...you guys enjoy yourselves last night?"

To my left, Sara snorts. To my right, Alex chokes on a sip of tea. Across from me, Sharon just gives me a dirty look. I smile beatifically. "Well, I told you that I could hear him!"

x

x

x

Sara, Sharon, Alex, and I manage to get ourselves into the same observation group, along with two other men who introduce themselves as Vince Mingram and Gary D'Argenio. They're both cops at the nineteenth precinct and native New Yorkers, and I wonder why we didn't meet them before last night's dinner fiasco.

Since our companions already belong to the City, we head to their headquarters for our observations. Their building security is much more stringent than ours in Vegas, and we all have to empty our pockets and send our bags through the x-ray machine before we can even walk through the metal detectors. The guard on duty gives Vince and Gary a friendly nod, but I notice he makes sure that they undergo the same security check as the rest of us. These guys have a lot of experience with this sort of thing, I remind myself.

Gary looks around to make sure we've all cleared the metal detector, then motions us on. "It's not nearly as nice as this inside," he says over his shoulder when he catches Sara staring at the gilded moldings and painted ceiling. She flushes, embarrassed at being caught admiring the trappings.

"Yo!" Vince shouts as we enter the cavernous main room. "O'Leary! What do we got for the workshop people?"

A stocky, black-haired man looks up from his desk and grins. "Hey guys! Right now we're holding a rapist, two assaults, a gangbanger, and four pickpockets. Take your pick."

Vince looks back at our group. "Well? Opinions?"

"Rapist," Sara and Sharon say in unison.

Alex and I look at each other and shrug. "Sure," I say, speaking for both of us. "Rapist is fine."

"Works for me," declares O'Leary. "They're already going, back in rooms five and six," he tells Vince and Gary, jerking his thumb toward the block of interview rooms lining the bullpen.

They lead us to an observation room and usher us through the door. Introductions are made between us and the detective observing the interrogation, Detective Hon, and he invites us to make ourselves at home but to please be quiet about it. We obey, shuffling into the smallish room and arranging ourselves in a cluster behind him. Hon tells us that the suspect is named Angelo and the officer conducting the interview is Bole, then turns back to the window and leaves us to ourselves. Within seconds, I'm absorbed in the action going on in the other room.

"Look," Detective Bole is saying as she leans over the suspect's left shoulder. "You've got scratches on your face. She ID'd you. We can work with you on this, man, but you need to tell us what happened."

The suspect continues to stare sullenly at the scarred table. His lawyer is leaning back in his chair, trying to appear relaxed and failing, at least in my opinion. After a minute, the suspect mumbles, "I don't know her."

"You don't need to know her to have raped her, Angelo," Bole says. "There's not usually an introduction beforehand."

"My client has said that he doesn't know the woman, Detective," lawyer-man says. "If that's the only question you have, then we're done here."

"Oh, no," Bole says. "I have plenty more where that came from. For instance, would he like to explain the semen samples found on both him and the victim, both of which are the same blood type and will soon also be matched for DNA?"

"So you have his blood type," the lawyer says. "Good luck trying to indict on that. As for DNA, when you actually have that evidence - if you ever have that evidence - we can talk again."

I feel Sara's hand touch my shoulder, pulling my attention away from the interrogation. She leans up and whispers in my ear, "It's kind of hard to count lines when he's giving one-sentence answers." I nod, then shrug. We have to work with what we've got and she knows it. I hear her sigh quietly, then turn my eyes back to the suspect.

"Hey!" Bole yells, slapping her hand on the table and making both suspect and lawyer jump. "You're not getting out of here until you give me a story, so start talking."

The suspect shrugs loosely. "I was walking. Just walking down the street! I never even got near the girl, and then some cop throws me up against a wall before I even know he's there and tells me I'm a rapist."

Sharon leans over to me and says quietly, "He almost sounds believable."

I have to agree. We're used to hearing denials, but every now and then you see one where the guy seems sincerely upset by having someone suggest he would commit a crime. It's something in the tone of voice, I think, and maybe the movements of the eyes. Even if I can't quite pin it down, I can see it.

But wait, I admonish myself - I'm not using any of my new linguistic skills to evaluate him. Then again, as Sara said a few minutes ago, he's not giving us much to work with. After a moment of consideration, I lean over to Gary and ask him if we can observe the vic's interview instead. He shrugs a yes and motions us out the door, en masse.

The victim is a small, blonde-haired woman wearing a sweatshirt at least four sizes too large for her. She has her arms wrapped around herself and is rocking slightly as she speaks. We get a quick introduction to Detective Dubrowsky, behind the mirror, and Lieutenant Young, in front of it, and then turn our attention to what the victim is saying.

"He was, uh..." she's saying, "large. I mean, not just tall, but big, like football-player-I'm-gonna-tackle-you kind of big. He...he used his weight to hold me down. I couldn't even get a hand up to fight back. I always thought that I'd fight for myself, and when it happened, I didn't even try..." Her eyes take on the sheen that I associate with a woman about to cry and I have a sudden urge to rush in there and hug her - not exactly my usual pragmatic reaction to victims.

I feel a hand touch mine, and I look at Sara as she inches a little closer to me so she can hold my hand without being seen. I meet her eyes and she nods: yes, I believe her. I nod back: me too.

So if she's telling the truth, and the guy in the other room is telling the truth...what are we missing?