A/N: I swear to god, there's a plot in here somewhere. The fluff just keeps getting in the way! Hopefully I can get Logan settled down and start them on the actual investigation soon.

A/N 2: 08ClassicRockChicky08, I know about programming because it's kind of my sub-specialty within my field (linguistics), so I've taken a bunch of class and, well, can't resist showing off and writing it into stories sometimes

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Bobby returned to his desk feeling like he'd just been swallowed up in a tornado and then spit out again. He was supposed to confront Logan? About Alex? He could hardly talk to the man about a case without one of them jumping down the other's throat; how was he supposed to be able to wander up to the guy and explain that oops, there had been this big misunderstanding and while Logan thought Goren was beating Alex, Deakins thought Logan was beating her . . .

He groaned. Should he call her and ask how to handle the other man, or should he just go ahead and bite the bullet? If he called Alex, she'd be up here standing between them before anyone could stop her, and that would only get Deakins more worked up.

Ok, so no calling the woman who usually served as their buffer. This was really not going to work out well. There was no possible way it could.

He put his head in his hands and tried to think.

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And that was how Alex found him, twenty minutes later, slumped over his desk looking like he'd just been sucker punched. The excited words she had been about to utter died on her lips and she circled their desks to stand next to him. "Bobby? Are you ok?"

His head jerked up and he blinked at her as if he hadn't known she was there. "Uh, yeah. Just fine."

He was a terrible liar when it came to her. "No, it's not," she said with an exasperated look. "What's going on?"

He shook his head. "Just Deakins taking too much of an interest in your personal life again." Half-truth, that was the key. He could manage to lie to her for a little while if it was only a partial lie. "He called me in to ask about the bruises and the crying again."

"Oh." She leaned against the corner of his desk, crossed her arms, and looked at him with interest. "What did you tell him?"

"The same thing both of us have been telling him all along. Accident, argument with someone, and so forth. It, uh, seemed to appease him." Oh, Bobby, come on. Could you possibly tell her a bigger lie than that?

She wasn't totally convinced, but she decided to let the subject drop for the moment. "Well, Dan and I had some success with our script. Wanna hear?"

"Yes, of course!" He raised his head out of his hands and smiled. Any subject change was welcome at this point, but he was especially pleased that it was something that he was definitely interested in.

She grinned back and opened the folder she'd been carrying. "Well, with a little incentive, I got him working fast and we had figured out that all we really needed was to read the two files into independent arrays -"

"Eames."

"- dictionaries, I mean - and loop through each, comparing it with the other. It wasn't too hard, I was never good with programming logic, but -"

"Eames."

"- he explained it really well and we -"

"Alex!" he finally said, putting a hand over her mouth.

"What?" she mumbled through his hand before reaching up to remove it.

"I don't understand a word you're saying and you know it. Just tell me what you found."

She sighed. "You can't blame me for wanting to savor the opportunity to teach you something. But ok, fine, if you want to spoil my fun." She slipped a sheet of paper out of the folder and set in front of him. "Those are the people she defended and lost who are also currently out on parole, work release, and such. Twenty-eight. These," she went on, putting a second sheet of paper on top of the first, "are the prosecutors who have records of consistently losing when it comes to her defendants. Three."

He sighed. "Thirty-one people . . ."

"Each of whom we're going to have to chase down to at least confirm their whereabouts," she finished for him. "Think Deakins will give us a couple more detectives if we ask nicely?"

"Who did you have in mind?" he asked guardedly. There was no way Deakins was going to put Logan and Barek on a task that involved Eames, not after what he'd just told Bobby he suspected. He just hoped Alex didn't ask him to.

There was a pause before she sighed and said, "Logan and Barek are probably the best."

He put his face back in his hands and couldn't hold back a groan.

"You want to tell me what's really going on now?" she prompted, pulling his right hand down so she could at least see part of his face.

He was going to have to take care of this now if he didn't want it interfering in their investigation. He lifted his head and looked past her, spotting part of Logan's sleeve protruding from behind the pole that hid his desk, then stood up.

"Bobby? Where are you going?"

He avoided her eyes and muttered, "Gotta talk to Logan."

"Oh no you don't," she hissed, grabbing his arm and pulling him back toward his chair.

"I'm not going to cause trouble." Or at least, I hope I'm not. "Just trust me on this, please? You know I wouldn't want to talk to him unless I had a good reason."

"I swear to god, Bobby, if you're going over there warn him to keep his hands off me, I am going to seriously consider castrating you to curb your territorial behavior."

"I'm not. I'd like to keep my anatomy intact, thank you. I'll tell you everything you want to know when I'm done with him, ok?"

"Fine," she said shortly. "Go do what you have to do, but I'm keeping my scissors handy until I get an explanation."

He gave her a comforting smile in lieu of the reassuring kiss he'd have preferred to give her and patted her hand. "Thanks." As he began to walk away from his desk, he stole a glance to the side to see if Deakins would be paying attention to the little show he was about to put on. He found the captain watching with interest as he approached Logan's desk.

Logan looked less than pleased when he saw Goren strolling toward him. He put down his pen, crossed his arms, and looked at the other man suspiciously. "What?"

"I need to talk to you," Goren said as politely as he could.

"If this is about -" Logan began.

"It's not just about Alex. Please," he said through gritted teeth, "come into the conference room with me and I'll explain once we're in there. And no," he added before Logan could ask, "I'm not planning to hit you, either."

Logan glanced at his partner, who was watching their exchange with a hint of amusement in her dark eyes. "Go on, Mike," she urged with a smirk. "You're not afraid of him, are you?"

"You," he said, pointing at her accusingly but with a hint of humor in his eyes, "should keep your eyes on your paperwork and stop worrying about who I'm talking to."

"Sure, sure." She glanced up at Goren. "You going to hit him? Because I really would be obligated to do something to protect him if you did."

"Shut up," Logan muttered as he stood up to face Bobby. "Fine. You've got my attention. Conference room?"

"Conference room," he said with a nod before turning his back on Logan and walking toward the room in question.

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Goren shut the door behind them as the two men entered the conference room, then turned to find Logan standing stiffly a few feet away. "Relax," he ordered. "Or at least try to. You're not supposed to be defensive yet."

"Excuse me?"

"Look out there and see if Deakins is watching us."

Logan raised his eyebrows, but did as he was asked. "Yes. He's standing at Alex's desk but looking over here."

"Good."

"Why is that good?"

Bobby waved him to a chair. "Because, Logan, you and I are about to put on a little, uh, show for his benefit." With that, he lowered himself into a chair that put him in profile to the glass front of the room and looked at the other man expectantly.

Logan sat, reluctantly choosing a chair across from Goren so he could see him clearly. "And what kind of 'show' is that, may I ask?"

"The kind that saves your ass," Goren growled. "Now shut up and listen."

Logan drew his head back in surprise, but said nothing.

"Deakins called me into his office a little while ago to talk about Eames's . . . behavior this week. Don't," he interrupted himself when he saw Logan open his mouth, "say anything yet. Let me finish, then you can vent."

"Fine."

"Good. Thank you. Now, as I was saying, Deakins wanted to talk about Eames. It seems that he's been doing a little too much, uh, thinking about this and he put two and two together and got five. Specifically, he took that fact that you always seem to be around when Alex is . . . upset and the fact that Alex is getting upset in the first place, and decided that it means you're the one upsetting her. Which," he said, holding up a hand to hold off Logan's angry exclamation, "you and I both know is not true."

"Damn right it isn't. I take it you didn't own up to it?"

"No, I didn't, not that he gave me the chance to. He was too busy telling me how I was supposed to . . . talk to you and report back to him whether you're, uh, guilty. Which is why, right about now, you need to start looking offended as hell."

Logan had no trouble affecting that expression. "He sent you to interrogate me?"

"Yes, and I couldn't talk him out of it, although I, uh, tried." Without warning, he slammed his hand down on the table, making Logan start. "Which is why we're in here now trying to look like . . . like I'm scaring you into giving me the truth by doing things like smacking the table. In a few minutes, we will walk out of this room and you'll go back to your desk while I tell Deakins that you had nothing to do with any of it."

"Why am I finding myself skeptical of that?" Logan retorted, looking at Goren belligerently. "As I recall, you would have loved to throw me to the wolves a few hours ago."

"Yeah, well, as much as I might want to, I value my skin too much to do it." At Logan's blank look, he sighed. "See the scissors Alex is fiddling with?" he asked, pointing back toward their desks.

Logan glanced warily through the glass. "Yes."

"She threatened to take them to me if I started up with you again. So I'm not. Instead, I'm doing my damndest to get us both out of this unscathed." He paused and stole a look through the window. "He's paying closer attention now. Start yelling."

Logan blinked, then drew in a deep breath and bellowed, "Excuse me?"

"Good," Goren said quietly. "This could actually be therapeutic." Then he paused for a second before taking in his own deep breath and replying, "You heard what I said!"

"Does Alex know about this?" Logan asked in his normal tone of voice, then raised it again to yell, "I did not!"

"No. Which is why she's glaring at us right now." Pause, breath. "Then how do you explain what I saw?"

"She's going to kill you before she bothers with me." Logan glanced sideways to see how their performance was being received and found most of the squad room staring at them in fascination. "I had nothing to do with it!"

"I'm going to pull her in here when I get done with you and explain. Now, look intimidated," he said, standing up and rounding the table to stand next to Logan's chair.

Logan gave him a dubious look, then stood up and crossed his arms defensively. "She's not going to believe you," he said, then shouted for the benefit of their audience, "Goren!"

"What do you suggest I do, then?" He straightened his posture, deliberately towering over Logan and looking down his nose at him as he made a chopping motion in the air as if he were making a point.

Logan stood his ground and glared up at Goren. "We'll both talk to her." The words were said in a near-friendly tone of voice, but accompanied by a sneer on his face.

"Since when do you care if she believes me?" Goren backed away a step and tried to look skeptical.

Logan shrugged. "You're doing me a favor - I think - so I owe you one." He relaxed slightly as Goren moved away. "Are we done pretending to fight?"

"Yeah, I guess." He waved his hand threateningly under Logan's nose. "But first I have to warn you that if I find out it was you I'll kill you, and so forth."

"I'm shaking in my shoes."

Goren narrowed his eyes. "Don't get cocky, Logan. I beat you in a fight once, I can do it again."

He couldn't hold back a bark of laughter. "Don't delude yourself, Goren. You and I both got our asses kicked by that waif you call a partner."

Bobby glanced out at Alex, noticing the tension in her posture. "Ok, maybe we did. And I get the feeling that if we don't talk fast once we get her in here, she's going to do it again."

"No kidding."

"We should shake hands."

"Excuse me?" Logan said, eyebrows shooting up.

"Well, if I just found you innocent, then we should be making peace."

Logan reluctantly stuck out his hand, saying, "I swear to god, Goren, you get me involved in your screw-ups one more time . . ."

"Yeah, well, believe me when I say that I'm not inviting you to any of my parties in the near future," Bobby retorted, giving Logan's hand a cursory shake.

"Ditto." He glanced at the window. "Should we get her in here now?"

Goren nodded and walked to the door. He took a shaky breath just before opening it - earning himself a snicker from the man behind him - then leaned out and called, "Eames?"

As Alex jumped out of her chair and stalked toward the conference room, the two men exchanged an apprehensive look.