A/N: Sigh. I'm kind of thin on plot, and it doesn't help that all I can seem to type lately is fluff and/or humor. We'll see how this chapter goes over, I guess...

Logan was already comfortably ensconced on Barek's couch, her cat purring loudly on his lap, when Goren and Eames arrived looking somewhat worse for the wear. "Damn," Logan whistled as he took in his two very rumpled, very unhappy-looking coworkers. "What happened to you guys?"

Goren and Eames looked at each other as if each was daring the other to talk first. "Nothing," Alex finally snapped. "Please tell me you've got the pizza on the way, or I might be forced to start gnawing on Bobby's arm."

Barek, who had been observing from the sidelines with her ferret perched on one shoulder, quickly stepped forward to intervene before Alex could start cannibalizing her partner. "Here," she said, lifting the animal and handing him to Alex. "Hug something furry, instead."

Alex accepted it reflexively, then looked down at the lithe animal in her hands. "He doesn't look very huggable. Looks more like I'd break him if I hugged him."

"That's ok - give him a few seconds and he'll hug you, instead," Barek replied. As she spoke, the ferret reared up and sniffed at Alex's hair, then hooked his claws into her shirt and started climbing. "See? Told you so. Alex, meet Vidocq."

She couldn't keep the scowl on her face when there was warm, furry body tickling her neck with its whiskers. Within seconds, Alex was giggling and halfheartedly trying to push the offending nose away as Vidocq curled around her neck.

Bobby, who had been concentrating on removing first Alex's gun, then his own, from their belts, looked up at Barek. "Did you say 'Vidocq?"

"She did," Logan answered for her. "And you haven't even met Locard yet." Turning on the couch to face them, he held up the Siamese, who tolerated the movement with surprising equanimity and just looked back at the spectators with slightly crossed eyes, meowing loudly.

"Vidoq and Locard?" Alex repeated, letting Vidocq sniff her hand. "Well, I suppose it's more appropriate than 'Kitty' and 'Fluffy'."

Barek shrugged. "I'm a cop, what was I supposed to name them?"

"At least there's nothing running around named 'Bertillon,'" Logan said with a grin as he replaced the cat on his lap. "At least, I don't think there is."

"That's what I call the mouse I can't seem to get rid of that Locard likes to chase," Barek quipped.

"Ok, I admit, I'm feeling less homicidal now," Alex said, giggling, "but I'm still starving. Where's dinner?"

"Keep your pants on," Logan told her. "It's on the way."

"Uh, yeah," Barek said with a grin. "All pants should stay on, please. So, is it true that you're going to eat a whole pizza by yourself, or was Goren kidding?"

Alex punched her partner in the arm. "Great, go and tell everyone so I look like a pig. Some damn partner you are."

"Who said anything about pigs?" Logan pushed Locard off his lap and stood up, walking over to where the others stood. "If you can seriously eat an entire pizza, Eames, I'm gonna want to shake your hand, not make fun of you."

Goren looked thoughtful. "Would you and Barek care to make a friendly wager about the matter?" he asked Logan.

"Count me out," Barek said immediately. "I'm a believer."

Logan snorted. "Weakling. I'll take you up on that, Goren. There's physically no way your scrap of a partner could get a whole pizza into her. What are the terms?"

Bobby blinked. "Uh . . . I hadn't got that far in the planning."

"That'll teach you to speak before you think," Alex teased. "How 'bout the winner gets to interview Tony Meadows, and the loser gets to do the cleanup work?" She looked at Barek and added, "Right? Male ego, they'll want to face the guy?"

"Sounds about right to me," Barek agreed. "What do you say, guys?"

Bobby hid his smirk. He and Alex both knew that it wasn't a fair bet; he'd seen her polish off a pizza more times than he could count, usually during long nights of grunt work . . . but Logan didn't need to know that. "Sounds good to me."

"Me too," Logan said with a nod. "So, Carolyn . . . when is the pizza supposed to get here, anyway?"

As if on cue, there was a knock on the apartment door. "Dominoes!" a youthful-sounding voice called.

Barek gave her partner a push toward the door. "Answer the door, Logan. Did I mention that you're paying?"

"But . . ."

"Hope you brought your wallet," she teased.

"Oh, for god's sake," Alex grumbled when Logan just continued to look blank, "I'll answer the damn door." And she did exactly that, marching to the door and yanking it open, startling the teenager outside who was balancing three pizzas in one hand. The boy just gaped at her, and it took her a second to realize he was trying to figure out what the furry thing clinging to her was. Rolling her eyes, she removed Vidocq from her shoulder and held him out to Barek. "Carolyn?"

"Got him." Barek took the ferret and smiled at the pizza boy. "You can come on in and put them down on the table."

"Uh, sure." He entered the apartment warily, then stopped short at the sight of Logan leaning against the wall. He immediately began to back up, and all three of the others looked at Logan, wondering what he'd done.

"Oh, for god's sake, Mike!" Barek groaned. "Did you miss the lesson about leaving your sidearm at the door when you go visiting? It's ok, kid," she told the pizza boy. "He's a cop. A dumb one, but still a cop."

Logan glanced absently down at his hip and thumbed open the holster on his belt. "Oh, sorry. Kitchen ok for now?"

"Kitchen's fine, dimwit. You got any money for the pizza?"

Pretending he hadn't heard her question, Logan made a swift disappearance into the kitchen to deposit his gun in a room where it wouldn't be visible to innocent bystanders.

"I know where you keep your wallet!" Barek called after him, reaching into the pocket of the coat he'd left draped over a chair. "How much?" she added, looking at the teenager, who seemed to want nothing more than to escape this room full of nutcases.

"Uh . . . twenty-one . . . but I should, uh . . . I'm supposed to wait outside the door . . ."

"Calm down. My partner's an idiot, but he's not violent toward people who deliver his dinner." She counted out the twenty-one dollars plus a sizeable tip, taking half from her pocket and half from Logan's wallet. "Thanks."

The delivery boy beat a hasty retreat, and ten seconds later, three detectives were gathered around the living room table, staring down at the pizzas. "Which one's yours, Eames?" Barek said with a grin. "Better claim it before Logan comes back to fight you for it."

"Which one's plain cheese?"

Bobby crouched down to read the writing on the sides of the boxes. "Here," he said after a second, pulling out the middle box. "Enjoy."

She accepted the box from him with a grin. "I plan to."

When Logan returned to the room a minute later, he found Eames sprawled on the floor, leaning against Goren's legs where they dangled off the couch, while Barek had taken over the length of her loveseat. Each detective had claimed a pizza, and all three seemed to be enjoying his confusion. "Hey, come on guys. I paid for it, don't I get any?" He gave Barek's legs a push. "Shove over, Carolyn."

"Not a chance," she mumbled around a mouthful of cheese and pepperoni. "Go sit by Goren."

The two men exchanged wary looks, and Alex snorted. "Come on, Logan, don't you want to supervise your bet? Make sure I don't cheat and feed some of my pizza to the cat?"

He glanced at the cat, who was stretched along the back of the couch, one paw almost touching Goren's head. "Somehow, I think that threat would sound a lot more threatening if we were talking about a dog, or even a fat cat, instead of that thing," he said, pointing.

"Just sit your ass down, Mike," Eames said, throwing a piece of crust at him. "Some of us would like to get to work sometime tonight."

"Oh, fine." He dropped onto the opposite end of the couch from Goren, then glanced from the other man to Barek. "So, who's sharing their pizza with me?"

"He is," Barek said immediately, pointing to Goren. "Stay away from my pepperoni."

Goren shrugged good-naturedly and slid the box toward Logan. "Help yourself."

Logan did, then leaned forward slightly to check Eames's progress. "You done yet, slugger?"

Not even turning around, she took one hand away from the slice she was eating and shook her fist at him over her shoulder. "I'll show you 'slugger' . . ." Her rant was interrupted by the paper airplane that hit her in the side of the head. "Hey!"

A second later, Goren received a similar hit. "What . . .?" he began, snagging the paper before it could fall off the couch and unfolding it. "Oh, thanks. Interview transcripts," he informed his partner, who had casually tossed aside her plane in favor of her pizza.

"Thanks," Alex echoed, looking at Barek. "Sorry we can't reciprocate, but since some of us got stuck in traffic and couldn't get back to the office . . ."

"Read first, bitch later," Logan ordered, leaning forward to ruffle her hair. The sound of a throat clearing next to him put a stop to that, and he leaned back and gave Goren his best attempt at an innocent look. "What? Just checking her pizza progress."

"Don't touch the hair," Alex muttered, elbowing him in the knee. "Bobby, did they get anything good?"

Goren looked down at the paper in his hand and skimmed the contents of the interview. "Jessica Wolf, twenty-two. Uh, what's with the bracketed parts?" he asked, looking up at Barek and Logan.

Barek snorted. "Logan typed it. Those are his, uh, 'impressions' of her."

" 'Sexily dressed'?" Alex read, unfolding her own copy. "Before I even get into how creepy that is, is 'sexily' even a word?"

"Hey," Logan said defensively, "she was wearing a shirt cut down to her navel and she insisted on sitting next to me. What was I supposed to write?"

"Yeah, 'cause everyone knows you're god's gift to women," Barek said sarcastically. "I'm sure she was just intimidated by my superior beauty."

"Mmph," Goren interrupted, holding out a hand to stop Logan from responding to Barek's gibe while he swallowed the pizza he was chewing. "I know this one - the right answer is to agree with her."

Eames tipped her head back to grin up at him. "Ah, that's my partner . . . I knew I'd get you trained one of these days."

"Eat your pizza, girl," Logan ordered sourly. "And fine, Carolyn, I'm sure you're right. Can we get back to the actual contents of the interview, please?"

"Sure." Alex stuffed the remains of her sixth slice into her mouth and looked down at the transcript she held. "Ooh, breakups!" she exclaimed a second later, but through the mouthful of dough, the words came out nearly unintelligible.

"What?" Logan and Barek chorused.

"She said, 'ooh, breakups'," Goren translated. "And you're right, Eames." Looking back up at the other detectives, he explained, "Jane Grosse said that they had an on-again, off-again relationship and that it seemed to usually be Claire who did the breaking up. Put that together with what you guys've got here . . ."

". . . and we get a pattern of her trying to escape the relationship and him repeatedly pulling her back in," Alex finished for him after swallowing her mouthful. "She would break up with him - for now I think we can assume that it's because he was so controlling - and try to go her own way, and he would keep calling her and insisting that he loved her until she took him back."

"Sounds like she met Barek's ex," Logan said with a smirk.

"Excuse me!" Barek exclaimed, shaking her pizza threateningly at him. "He wasn't controlling, he just needed constant reassurance. Not everyone's got as, uh, 'healthy' an ego as you do, Logan."

"Whatever." He reached for a second slice out of the box he and Goren were sharing, then looked around at the progress the two women had made on their own pizzas. "Holy crap, Barek."

Barek glanced up from pulling her fifth slice out and gave him a politely curious look. "What?"

"You're almost as far in as Alex is!"

Alex smirked and reached out a hand to give Barek a playful high-five. "I do recall you asking us once how we could eat ice cream and drink wine for a whole night and not get fat."

"And now you've got your answer," Barek continued for her. "Practice, and lots of it."

"And partners we have to keep on a tight leash," Alex added.

"Right, that too."

Logan slumped back against the couch. "I am so screwed."

"Hey, we tried to warn you," Alex informed him. "But you just couldn't believe that I was up to the challenge."

"Looks like you're stuck with the paperwork for the foreseeable future," Barek told him. "And I'm so not helping you with it."

Endnote: Vidocq, Locard, and Bertillon were famous Frenchmen who advanced the fields of policework and forensic science. Vidocq is the father of cold-case solving, Locard was the originator of (dum dum DUM) Locard's Principle, which states that contact between two objects will result in trace evidence transfer between them, and Bertillon was the creator of a body measurement system (basically, because no one would have the same X number of measurements, then it that profile was unique to that person, and could be used to identify them in the future) that was the predecessor to fingerprinting