A/N: Well, I'm back from vacation...got a lot done on Sacrifice, some done on Kamikaze, and nothing done on Reunion. So you can expect a Kamikaze update and another Sacrifice update in the next few days, but as for Reunion...no clue. Don't kill me!

"I know the department pays you enough that you could get a dishwasher, Carolyn," Logan sighed a few minutes later as he shook a clump of suds off his hand into the sink. "I suggest you look into it."

With a smirk, she snapped the dish towel she was holding at his butt. "Why spend the money for a dishwasher when I have a perfectly good partner?"

"I'm supposed to be Eames's slave, not yours," he grumbled, grabbing the towel and trying to pull it out of her hand. "You can wash your own damn dishes," he added, although he didn't try to move away from the sink.

"Hey," she said airily, waving toward the front door, "you're welcome to go any time you want."

Logan scowled. "I didn't say I wanted to leave."

"You're perverse," she informed him, moving her attention back to the dish she was drying. "Anyone ever tell you that?"

"Not since the last time I tried to persuade a girlfriend to -"

"Mike!"

He grinned. "Don't ask if you don't want to know."

"Jerk. Besides, I'm not the one who couldn't bear to hear about the boyfriends Eames and I had in college, so I'd watch my insults if I were you."

He blinked. "That was for Goren's benefit. He looked like he was about to cut and run."

"Uh-huh," she said, rolling her eyes, "and it had nothing to do with your own squeamishness."

"What's there to be squeamish about?" he said, attempting to sound oblivious to his earlier faux pas.

Barek gave him a knowing look as she put down one dish and picked up another. "Gee, who'd have known the great Mike Logan has size issues?"

"Carolyn!" He managed to keep his jaw from dropping, but lost his battle with the blush that was trying to rise on his face.

"Hah." She finished the dish in her hands and set it down, then crossed her arms and leaned back against the counter as she looked at him. "There's no way you're going to get out of this conversation without embarrassing yourself. I suggest you . . . what was it you said Goren was going to do? . . . 'cut and run,' before you get yourself in deeper."

He frowned. "I have nothing to be embarrassed about."

She raised an eyebrow skeptically, then nodded and said pleasantly, "Ok, well, in that case, let me tell you . . . the guy's flat-top wasn't the only thing on him that was big. Man, sometimes I miss him . . ."

Logan made a choking noise and looked away from her.

"So," Alex said as they climbed into their car outside of Barek's building, "what do you think they're going to do now that we're gone?"

Goren looked at her blankly. "Why would they be doing anything at all? He's probably on his way out."

She sighed as she started the car. "You can be surprisingly dense sometimes, you know that? Logan and Barek have got some major sexual tension between them, Bobby. Trust me when I say that, one way or another, he's not leaving that apartment for a while yet."

"Nah," he said dismissively, then just put his hands behind his head and watched the road instead of continuing his thought.

"Why 'nah'?" she prompted after a few minutes of silence. "You got some contradictory evidence?"

"You've got no evidence at all, so how could I contradict it?" he replied. "Face it, Eames - you've just got sexual tension between partners on the brain."

"Hey, this has nothing to do with us," she argued. Well, maybe he had a point, but there was no way she would admit it to him. "Logan and Barek have a completely different dynamic."

"So then why are you qualified to make predictions about it?"

She groaned loudly. "You are impossible!"

"Sorry." He was quiet as she parked the car in front of her building, ruminating upon the fact that they no longer bothered to discuss who was sleeping where; both apartments now boasted an array of clothing and personal items belonging to each of them, and it was simply a matter of which way Eames happened to point the wheels of the car on a given day.

"Hey, Bobby?" she said as they stepped into the elevator.

"Yeah?"

"You really think I'm imagining the thing with Logan and Barek?"

He thought about that for a moment. "No, I don't necessarily think you're imagining the tension between them . . . but there could be a lot of reasons for that besides attraction. And I would think that Logan's too smart to get himself involved with his partner."

Alex raised her eyebrows. "My god," she exclaimed with exaggerated astonishment as she dug her keys out of her pocket, "did I just hear you imply that Logan's smarter than you, since you apparently didn't know better than to get involved with me?"

He frowned. "That's different."

She didn't look up from the bolt she was unlocking as she snorted. "It's only 'different' because you don't want to answer my question."

"No, it's different because you and I are . . ."

"A special case?" she finished for him. "Everyone's a special case to someone. Just admit that it's possible, Bobby. That's all I'm saying - that, and have a little sympathy if I turn out to be right."

"Fine, fine." He followed her into the apartment, catching her coat as she dropped it toward the floor. "It's a possibility, however remote. Can we talk about something more substantial than office gossip now?"

She paused to kick off her shoes, looking over her shoulder at him. "Sure, I guess. Like what?"

"If we're going to talk to Claire tomorrow," he said, copying her movements and taking off his own shoes, "then we need to talk about how we're going to get past her defenses."

"You're saying you don't think you can charm it out of her?" Alex teased. "What happened to the Goren magic?"

He just shook his head and headed for the bedroom. "You know better than that. Charm's not going to work on a young girl who's already firmly under the spell of another man. We need to catch her off guard."

"Conversation instead of questions? Ease her into it?"

Bobby stopped short a few steps into the bedroom, making her walk into him before she could catch herself. "You know," he said, grabbing her arms to steady her, "I love it when you read my mind." Without giving her time to respond, he leaned down and kissed her. "Now, how about we forget about the sexual tension between Logan and Barek and start focusing on our own?"

"Thanks so much for coming in this morning," Alex said the next morning, giving Claire Young a sunny smile. Noticing that the girl seemed as nervous as they had feared, she waved her hand dismissively, trying to make it seem like they were about to launch into an insignificant chat. "We just need to get a few more details clear about your mom."

Claire looked over her shoulder at where Goren stood, leaning against the wall, then looked back at Eames and just nodded slightly.

Yeah, Alex thought, suppressing a sigh, the girl was on her guard in a big way. Whether that was because Tony had purposely made her nervous about the interview or whether it was normal talking-to-the-police jitters, she didn't know, but either way, getting any information out of the reluctant Miss Young was going to take some major finesse. And to do that, they needed to make their first question sound as little like a question as possible.

"Drink up," she urged, gesturing to the cup of coffee that sat in front of Claire. "I don't know about you, but I'm really not a fan of having to think this early in the morning, especially on the weekend. Have you got a cranky boyfriend waiting at home, annoyed about having to get up so early with you?"

Claire cracked a smile, but only barely. Her eyes remained hooded as she mumbled, "No . . ." Then, seeming to re-think that, she said sheepishly, "Ok, well, kind of. He's more of a night person, so he whined when you guys called . . . but he probably went back to sleep the second I was gone."

"Ahh," Goren said from his corner, sounding amused. "Detective Eames, here, is the same way. If I don't pump her full of coffee as soon as she gets to work, she has me hiding under my desk by noon."

Alex, who considered this a gross exaggeration of a minor truth but knew that it sounded good, shrugged and played along: "He's kidding, Claire. He doesn't hide under his desk; he just wises up and does what I tell him to do."

There was a moment of silence as both detectives tried not to hold their breath, knowing that if Goren hadn't gained Claire's sympathy with that, they'd have a long, hard interview in front of them.

Finally, Claire looked at Goren and rolled her eyes. "Some people are just like that, I guess."

"Tell me about it," Goren agreed. "Everyone seems to think I'm in charge, just because I'm more visible, but my partner's the one who makes most of the decisions." He leaned forward toward Claire and lowered his voice as if he were trying to keep Eames from hearing his next words: "And frankly, it's a lot easier to just go along with her than to start an argument about it."

The girl's posture relaxed slightly and she looked from one detective to the other. "But don't you just get sick of it? Tony . . . my boyfriend . . . he's the same way, and like you said, it's easier . . . but sometimes it just drives me so nuts!" Her fists clenched as she spoke, and for a moment, before she got hold of herself, she looked like she was about to slam them on the table.

Bobby shrugged elaborately. "Yeah, it can be frustrating, but . . . you, of all people, know it's just what works." He glanced at Eames, who was affecting a scowl, and met her eyes for a second to make sure they were still on the same page. When, without changing expression, she communicated that she was with him, he looked back to Claire. "I've gotten some, uh, flack from friends about how I should put in for a new partner, but they don't really know how she and I are together. They think she's just . . . well, a bitch."

Alex, wondering if there was a grain of truth to that statement, snorted, no longer needing to completely fake her displeasure. "Your friends don't realize that without me you couldn't find your way out of a paper bag."

Before Bobby could respond, Claire looked at him and asked, "I bet you guys solve a lot of cases, right? You're really good?" When he nodded, she went on, "So it's a trade-off you're willing to accept - letting the other person be in charge, in exchange for a really successful partnership?"

"It'd be a lot more successful if his friends would keep their noses out of his business," Eames mock-snapped, knowing a conversational opportunity when she saw one.

Goren gave her a surprisingly believable pleading look. "They mean well, Eames," he told her tiredly, making it sound as if they'd had this argument a thousand times before. Turning back to Claire, he shrugged. "Can't make them lay off if they don't want to; all we can do is ignore them."

Claire directed a hard glare at Eames. "So just because his friends are watching out for him, you don't like them? You don't want him talking to them? What is it with you people?"

Alex assumed a look of confusion. "Which people?"

"You! And Tony! He's the same way; all he does is bitch about my mom and how she should get out of my life . . ." She let her voice trail off there, looking like she'd just realized she'd said too much.

"Tony and your mom didn't get along?" prompted Goren. "Because you know, Detective Eames and my friends can't stand each other."

Claire sighed. "They pretty much hate each other. Hated, I mean. But . . . but well, I think that's pretty normal for a lot of couples. Look at you two."

Goren and Eames exchanged a look; a moment later, Alex started tapping her pen impatiently against her chin. "Sorry," she said abruptly, pushing back her chair, "but you guys are going to have to excuse me. I just remembered I have a report due at noon that I haven't even started yet."

Bobby, who knew very well that there was no such report and his partner was providing him some space for him to bond with Claire, nodded agreeably and waved Eames off.

She paused on the threshold of the room, a gleam in her eye, and looked back at him. "Don't screw anything up while I'm gone, Goren."

"I'll try," I replied meekly, beginning to think of good ways to get back at her once they'd finished this interview.