He woke up with her mostly on top of him, her head nestled against his shoulder and one of her legs between his, and he determinedly stifled the urge to groan something about how he'd known this would happen. "Alex?" he attempted, patting her cheek. She didn't even twitch, and the dead weight of her head on his shoulder told him that she wasn't faking it this time.

With a sigh, Bobby wrapped his left arm around her and decided that if he couldn't wake her up, he'd just have to keep her where she was until she did open her eyes. It was a purely pragmatic decision, of course; it had absolutely nothing to do with how good it felt to have a warm body - her warm body, in particular - on top of him and her small head cuddled trustingly into him. Nothing at all.

Right.

He knew exactly how stupid he was being . . . and yet he was doing it anyway. Then he glanced at the clock and noticed that he'd woken up a little later than he usually did for work. "Crap." As much as he wanted to, he couldn't afford to wait for her to wake up by herself.

He allowed himself a few more seconds to memorize the scene around him and the woman on top of him, then shrugged his shoulder slightly, jostling her head. "Eames."

She muttered something that sounded like, "Mlurgh," and refused to be moved.

"Alex, come on. I need to get up."

She lifted her head slightly and cracked one eye. "Why?"

"Because it's past eight and I - hey!" he broke off when she snorted derisively and dropped her head back onto his shoulder.

"Five more minutes?" She was speaking into his neck and her words were largely unintelligible, but based on what he could hear and what he knew about her aversion to waking up, he was pretty sure that was what she'd said.

"You can have as many more minutes as you want," he told her, giving her shoulder a push as he tried to work his way out from under her. "I'm the one who needs to get up."

Her eyelashes fluttered against his skin and he knew she'd just opened her eyes. "Work?"

"Yes."

"I'm coming with you," she said, attempting to sit up.

"No you're not. Go back to sleep."

"No. I'm coming with you," she repeated, more firmly this time. "We already had this argument yesterday and I won, remember?"

Resorting to using both hands and a fair amount of force, he more or less lifted her off of him and set her to the side. "Yesterday you hadn't spent the day before running all over and in serious pain. You're not coming, Alex."

She leaned over and rested an elbow on his stomach, purposely pushing down a bit too hard. "It's not your decision to make."

He sighed and pushed her arm to the side so she at least wasn't leaning directly on his diaphragm. "Until you're in good enough shape to physically get past me and go to work on your own, it is my decision. And I say you're not going."

"And I say bring it on," she retorted. "What are you going to do, tie me down?"

"Do not tempt me, Alex," he said, pushing her elbow off him entirely and sitting up. "My life would be much easier if I could just tie you down to the bed to keep you from doing something dumb and hurting yourself."

"Bobby!" She looked at him with wide eyes and raised eyebrows. "You wouldn't dare do that to me."

"You're right, I wouldn't - not unless I absolutely had to, to keep you safe. But lately you're flirting with that line. Face it, Eames: you're not coming to work today."

"Oh really?" She rolled onto her back and looked up at him with a smirk. "So what, you're going to leave me here alone all day? And don't tell me you're going to call Lewis again, because you know he's not getting within twenty feet of me unless he's sure I won't have another nightmare."

"Damn it." She was right on both counts, and he wanted to kick himself for needing to have her point them out to him.

"You can't win, Bobby. Just let me have my way and things will go a lot easier."

He gave her an incredulous look and blurted, "Is that what you tell your boyfriends?" The words were out of his mouth before he could censor them, and when he caught up with what he'd said, he groaned and put out a hand to stop her response. "Don't answer that."

She grinned knowingly. "With the notable exception of you, most of the men in my life have instinctively known better than to argue with me in the first place. Now, getting back to the subject at hand, will you give me a hand getting up?" she asked, holding out a hand expectantly.

He glared at her for a second, then sighed and took her hand. "I'm not washing your hair again."

"You didn't do a very good job the first time; I won't be missing much," she shot back, remembering their awkward attempt last week to wash her hair in her kitchen sink when she realized that she couldn't raise her arms to do it by herself in the shower. "I'm more concerned with getting the rest of me clean, anyway."

"I'm not washing that, either," he teased as between the two of them, they managed to get her on her feet. "And you're not gon- . . ."

"I'm not gonna what?' she prompted distractedly, trying to comb the fingers of one hand through her tangled hair, when his voice trailed off.

"Uh . . . I forget," he managed thickly. Turning away from her, he asked, "You want the shower first, then?"

"For god's sake," she muttered, realizing that he was trying not to look at her bare legs, "I'm completely covered, Bobby! This shirt is like a dress on me. You're not going to go to hell if you look at my legs - which, by the way, you see every time I wear a skirt to work, anyway."

"Ok, then I'll shower first," he said, ignoring what she'd just said and snatching a change of clothes from his bag.

"Coward!" she called after him.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"You look worse than her this morning," Deakins remarked when he managed to get Bobby alone later that day. "What's she been doing to you?"

He just sighed and shook his head. "Being herself."

"Ah, a truly frightening prospect. Want to borrow a set of cuffs for the next time she starts arguing with you?"

Bobby couldn't restrain the startled laugh that bubbled out of him at that. "Believe it or not, I already threatened her with that. She laughed in my face."

"Sounds like you two are back to normal, at least," Deakins observed with a smirk. "So, uh . . . what are we going to do with her now?" he added, glancing cautiously over his shoulder to where Alex sat, concentrating on one form or another. "I assume she refuses to go home?"

"She would if I gave her the chance, but for today, at least, I'm stuck. There's no one else who could have stayed with her at home while I was here, so it's not worth arguing over."

"No one?" Deakins echoed, looking doubtful. "What about her brothers? Didn't one of them pick her up yesterday?"

"They're . . . busy today." And she'd probably murder Rob right in the middle of the bullpen if he were to walk in. "I can try Sean or his girlfriend, if it really becomes necessary."

Deakins blinked. "You know her brother's girlfriend?"

Oops. "Uh, you know . . . just from, uh, around," he, managed, fumbling for words that weren't too revealing.

"You know, I don't think I want to know. Just make sure you have a contingency plan to get rid of Eames - that's all I'm concerned with for the time being."

"Sure. Me too. And I do." Without further comment, he fled the captain's office.

Alex looked up when his shadow fell across his desk. "You two enjoy your pow-wow? Think of a way to get rid of me yet?"

Tolerating her gibes without comment, he set down his portfolio and sat down. "How are you feeling?"

"Just peachy," she muttered darkly. "Thanks for asking."

He leaned forward and tried again, this time with more intensity in his voice, to communicate his genuine concern. "I'm serious, Alex. I want to know if you're feeling ok."

"I'm fine," she said, setting down her pen with a sigh. "You'd be able to tell if I wasn't. Now, can I get back to work?"

"No."

"Excuse me?" she said, eyes widening in surprise.

"I mean, not that work," he said, pointing to the form she had been filling out. "I want you to go over these crime scene photos with me." He flipped open his portfolio to show her a stack of CSU photographs. "There's something I'm not seeing."

She raised her eyebrows. "You mean you're going to let me do actual work? Hallelujah. Hand 'em over."

"Conference room's probably easier," he pointed out as she shuffled through the two-inch thick stack. "We can lay them out on the table."

"You're right." She handed him the photos and, without ceremony, pushed herself up from her chair. "Let's go."

Bobby almost dropped the pictures as he reacted instinctively by getting ready to catch her if she fell. When she stayed upright and just gave him a casual smile, he scowled. "You could have given me some warning, Eames."

"If I'd given you warning, you wouldn't have let me do it."

"And that's a bad thing? You know what happened last night when you tried to stand up by yourself."

"I was doped up last night," she said, turning toward the conference room. "And I'm not today. So stop fussing and come on."