A/N: The plot returns! There is more angst to come in future chapters, though, I promise! I might even have another chap ready to post today...depends on whether housecleaning and homework interfere with my 'shipping schedule ;)

A/N 2: Don't let yourselves get too spoiled with my writing speed...I tend to go through phases. One day soon I may hit a rough patch at school and be reduced to posting here once a week or something...

A/N 3: Shellster: I totally happened tore-read "Enery of Nothing" yesterday and so while I was writing that chapter I was like "must not be influenced! must not be influenced!"

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Goren had been right, Alex noted the next morning as she tore through her closet searching for a clean shirt. When he'd left her last night, she'd been feeling something close to dreamy, but he'd warned her that she'd change her mind by the morning.

She had. Now she felt manipulated. She felt gullible.

Currently, she was plotting ways to get rid of his body after she murdered him.

Her phone rang when she had her head and one arm halfway into a too-big shirt she'd managed to pull from the depths of her closet. She let out a curse and jerked it the rest of the way over her head, picking up the phone with the already-dressed arm while she tried to wrestle the other through its sleeve. "Hello."

There was a short pause, and then: "Eames. Uh, hi."

Bobby. Why was she not surprised? She shouldn't have put off deciding how to handle him until the morning; now she was unprepared. "Hi," she finally said as impersonally as she could manage. "What can I do for you?"

Standing in his kitchen with the phone balanced between ear and shoulder as he filled his traveling mug with coffee, Bobby sighed. He'd been hoping that for once his prediction would turn out to be wrong. "You're mad," he acknowledged. "I'm sorry to call so early. I just wanted to know, uh, if you could get into work a little early today."

"What for?" she asked, struggling to pull on her left shoe with one hand.

"I forgot to tell you about this last night: I have the grade reports from the syntax students. They got faxed to us yesterday. I was wondering if you'd meet me early so we can take a look at them before Deakins demands an accounting."

The idea of having work to concentrate on, to distract her from the events of the past few days, was compelling. She took quick stock of her morning routine. It was only seven, and she was already up, showered, and dressed - well, mostly dressed. She could have her laptop and case ready in less than ten minutes. Breakfast could be put off until she got a break later.

Goren, unaware of the evaluation she was carrying out on her end of the phone, took her silence as a rejection. "I'll . . . bring breakfast," he coaxed. "Donuts and coffee?"

Already cramming her laptop into its bag, Eames said distractedly, "Uh, yeah, sure."

He let out a breath. "Good. What kind do you want?"

Hopping on one foot to put on her remaining shoe, and mumbled, "Huh? Doesn't matter."

That was atypical of her, he thought. She usually had no problem giving him a definite breakfast order, especially when he was buying. "Ok," he replied. "I'll see you at work, then. Say, half an hour?"

"Sounds good. Bye." Eager to have another hand to tie her shoes, Eames flipped the phone closed before Goren could answer her and stuffed it into her pocket.

"Hmm," Goren murmured, looking at the flashing call time screen on his phone. Deciding to suspend judgment until he could get a look at her, he slipped it into his pocket, grabbed his suit jacket, and jogged out the door.

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Goren was already settled at his desk when she arrived. When she slipped into her chair across from him, he slid the box of donuts toward her without a word. A few seconds later, he passed her three of the student files. "You get Alejandro, Jim, and Sara."

"You started already?" she asked, nodding toward the open folder in front of him. She felt a rush of relief at how normal he was acting. Maybe they could get through the day without killing each other, after all.

"Andrew Kim's file's twice the size of the others. The guy must have been taking six classes a semester for most of the time he's been there."

"Damn," she said wonderingly. "I couldn't handle six classes as an undergrad. I can't imagine tackling six as a grad student!"

"He probably doesn't do anything that's not school-related," he said with a shake of his head. "But so far nothing in here has struck me as useful. I'm hoping you find something in one of yours."

With a shrug, she grabbed a jelly donut and opened the folder holding Sara King's records.

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An hour later, Goren grunted and looked up at her. "I think I might have something."

"Shoot," she said, scooting her chair around to the side of his desk. "Damn, you're still on Andrew Kim?"

Studiously ignoring the fact that she was sitting entirely too close for his professional comfort, he pushed the folder and a legal pad toward her. "I told you it was long. He was in his seventh year. But here, look." He pointed to a page on the notepad with his writing on it, then to the page that was open in the file. "I listed the classes by instructor instead of semester. What do you see?"

She scanned the sheet. "His grades are all A's and A-minuses . . . except in the classes he took with Li. Those are in the B range." She paused and looked up at Goren. "That's weird. Didn't everybody say that Kim was Li's favorite?"

"They did," he said with an emphatic nod. "And I want to know if they were lying to us, or if he was lying to them."

"Andrew doesn't seem to have been alone," Eames said after a few more minutes, gesturing toward the open folders on her desk. "King and Owens both have drops in their grades too, although not as large as Kim's. I guess it makes sense, to some extent, given that we know he was a tough grader."

"Could be," he said with a slight nod. "But didn't Henry Jones say that Jim Owens was supposed to be one of the best?"

"Maybe he was being generous," she suggested. "Not wanting to badmouth a student who hadn't done anything to get himself in trouble?"

"Mmm." He looked back down at the files scattered around them. "We need more information about how these kids interacted with Li, and we're not going to get that kind of stuff from a group interview like I did the other day."

"You want to invite them over to play?" she asked, fishing around her desk for the list of contact numbers Goren had gathered from the students.

"Yeah," he said with a cunning look. "And let's . . . switch things up a little. These are college kids, they run on hormones - you take the boys, I'll take the girls."

"You're a crafty son-of-a-bitch, aren't you?" she said in an exaggerated accent. Looking over her shoulder to assure herself that they were alone, she added quietly in her normal voice, "And you're not afraid I'm going to throw one of the boys on the table and flirt him to death?"

"No." Apparently done with the subject, he looked back down at his paperwork.

"Why the change of heart?" she pressed, wary of this substantial change in his attitude.

"Not now," he muttered, not looking up as he spoke.

Eames glared at the top of his head, wishing she could launch herself across their desks and throttle him.

After a few seconds of pointed silence from Eames, Goren realized that she was staring at him. "I said 'not now,'" he said, correctly interpreting her death glare. "As in, 'now, no; later, yes'."

"I'm holding you to that," she announced as she focused her eyes on Alejandro Torreira's phone number and picked up the phone.

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"Thank you for coming in, Sara," Goren said a few hours later. "I'm Detective Goren, if you don't remember me. Are you missing any classes to be here?"

The student shook her head. "No, this is my free day. But do you mind telling me why you needed me to come up here?"

Goren gave her his charming-detective smile. "Good. I wouldn't want to get you in trouble with your professors. I asked you here because I was hoping you could give me some more information about your department. You know, who's dating who, who's getting the best grades, who people don't get along with . . ." he said, waving his hand casually. "That sort of thing."

Sara's eyes fixed thoughtfully on a wanted poster tacked to the wall. "In other words, gossip. Hmm."

Goren stayed quiet, figuring that she'd speak when she was ready, and after a few seconds she did: "There's a fair amount of flirting between all the students. Our department is unusual in that it's evenly balanced with guys and girls. We can be kind of . . . insular in our social habits."

Goren caught a trace of something in her voice and decided to follow her lead. "Social habits, huh? So," he asked conversationally, leaning back in his chair and raising his eyebrows, "were you dating anyone?"

She shook her head, a distasteful look on her face. "Drew and I dated for a while, but he got . . . weird."

"Weird with you? Or weird in general?"

"Both. At first it was just in general; he wanted to spend more time at school and less time with his friends. Then seeing me was suddenly tough to work into his schedule. And then . . . he got an attitude. You saw how he was talking when you were in our office. As if Dr. Li was some wonderful teacher who we just weren't smart enough to understand."

"And that wasn't the case, I assume?" he replied.

"Hell no. Look, I know he's dead and you're looking for people who would have had a reason to hate him, so don't take this the wrong way, but the guy was mean. He hated students - except Drew. He hated teachers - except Bhat. I don't think there are too many of us who are sad that he's dead," she said with a shrug. "Beyond the general sense of 'oh my god, someone I know has been killed'," I mean.

"You think Andrew had, I don't know, fallen under Li's spell?" Goren said, sitting forward again and speaking with a hint of excitement.

"I guess you could say that," she replied, unconsciously mirroring his posture and leaning forward, too. "It was weird . . ."

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While Goren charmed Sara King in the conference room, Eames was getting Alejandro Torreira settled in one of the interview rooms. "Sorry we have to talk in here," she said as she shut the door behind them. "There's no one behind the mirror right now; we're just in here because we're short on private areas that aren't like these," she added, waving her arm to indicate the narrow room they were in.

"It's ok," the boy said, squinting at the one-way mirror and obviously trying to figure out for himself if he was being watched. "It's kind of cool. You see it on TV, you know, but you never expect to in real life."

She smiled. "It can be surreal. But you have you before you one very real detective who has some questions for you."

"Ok," he said, not sounding quite as enthused.

"By the way, call me Alex," she said as she sat down across from him. "It's only fair."

That got a smile out of Alejandro. "Yeah, I forgot about that. So, uh . . . what do you need to ask me?"

"Mmm," Eames said, picking up a pen and fiddling with it with one hand, "we need background about your department. Anything you can tell me about who's doing what with whom."

Alejandro blinked. "What do you mean by . . . 'doing'?"

"Everything, up to and including who's 'doing' who, if you're ok with telling."

"Wow, you guys don't fool around," he said, resting his chin in his hand. "It's complicated, though. When it comes to personal relationships, linguistics people tend to play 'musical partners'."

Eames raised her eyebrows and motioned for him to continue.

"I've got a girlfriend in the Psych department, so I'm not totally immersed in the goings-on, but . . . Sara and Drew were an item for most of the year. They're over now. I think she finally picked up on his habit of insulting her whenever he gets a chance. Jana . . ." He stopped, eyed her critically. "Is this stuff going to get out? Because I'm sorry, but I'm not going to spread gossip about people I like."

"If it's something I think might be important, I'm obligated to follow it up," Eames acknowledged. "But my partner and I are used to dealing with secrets that don't add up to anything. Unless it has bearing on the case or it's illegal, it will never be made public; it might not be even if it does affect the case." She shrugged. "Believe it or not, we're not too big on ruining people's lives."

"Good. Because I like my friends."

"I promise, Alex," she said. "I'm not going to tell tales. Scout's honor."

He looked at her for a second longer, then nodded. "Ok. Well, there was a rumor that Jana was dating Dr. Murphy. I don't know if it's definitely true, but I know she did have a crush on him."

"Dr. Murphy was the chair who disliked Dr. Li?"

"Yeah. Murph was cool, if I were a girl I might have gone for him too."

She grinned, struck by an image of the stocky hispanic boy in a pair of high heels. "Interesting."

He blushed. "You know what I mean . . ."

"I do," she said with a serious nod, wiping the smile off her face. "What else you got for me? Did the students gossip about who was doing well in classes?"

"Of course. It's the departmental pastime. Everyone wants to know how they're measuring up."

"Nice," she said with a nod. "Fill me in . . ."