A/N: I just wrote 30 pages in 2 days on the history of Czech nationalism. I tried to work on this fic last night and my brain was so fried everything kept coming out jumbled. It sounded like Yoda had taken up BA shipping. But after a good night's sleep, I seem to be mostly recovered...if all goes well I will have the weekend free to catch up on my other two fics before I have to start on the next final paper...

"I don't think we're going to find a better time than this to for me to ask," Bobby pointed out, returning the comb to her hair. "I assume it involves me?"

"What doesn't, these days? I can take over," she offered, raising a hand to retrieve her comb. "Two hands free now."

He kept his grip on it. "Doing this will keep me from pacing."

"If you say so." She sighed and looked down at her hands. "You want it as a narrative or a question-and-answer?"

"Narrative," he mumbled, concentrating on a stubborn knot in her hair.

"My mom called to check on me. You already figured that out."

"Mmph." The damn knot wasn't loosening. Was it possible to permanently knot someone's hair? He hoped not.

Alex tilted her head back to see what he was so intent on. "What's wrong?"

"Knot," he told her, pushing her head back to its original position. "Go on; your mom called to check on you . . ."

It was rather interesting that he couldn't even allow himself to do something as simple as comb someone's hair unless he did it perfectly. She wondered how long he would be willing to work on the knot before giving up if it refused to cooperate. "She asked me what the hell a man was doing answering my phone. I told her, 'It wasn't a man; it was Bobby' and asked her if she and my dad hadn't been talking. She asked what I meant and I told her -"

"It wasn't a man?" he repeated sharply as he caught up to her words. "What does that mean?"

Why, he sounded almost offended, she thought, mentally rubbing her hands together. If she'd just found a chink in his armor, then she was definitely going to exploit the hole. Of course, for the moment, exploiting it meant doing nothing. "What? Oh, nothing," she murmured dismissively. "So I told her that Dad thought I was shacking up with you and asked her why he thought that, and yet she hadn't even realized that it was you who answered the phone. I said it was weird that she had understood about the nightmares but Dad hadn't and he felt like he had to lecture me about dating my partner. She was like, 'Excuse me? When did he do that?' and I told her about today. Next thing I knew, she had dropped the phone and I could hear her hollering at my dad. And that's when you walked in." Having run out of words, she took a breath and relaxed her shoulders, waiting for his reaction.

"What does that have to do with being in charge of me like I heard you tell her, though?" he said. "And I want to know why I'm not counted as a man."

"We were just joking around because when she came back to the phone she said my dad apologized and I asked what she'd done to him to get him to do that. She reminded me that she's got him scared of her and told me not to act surprised at it because she was sure I did the same thing with my boyfriends." She stopped, wondering if she could get away with ending it there.

"Go on," he ordered, waving the comb at her.

"Oh, fine. So I wasn't thinking and I said, 'Oh, I guess you're right because I have to be in charge or no one will notice me with him.' Which I guess sounds more specific than I meant it to be" Suuuure it does, Alex. Just keep telling yourself that. "She launched into a bunch of stuff about do I have a boyfriend she doesn't know about and all that and I just didn't want to answer any more questions, so I hung up."

"So . . . you weren't talking about me?"

"Are you my boyfriend?" she responded matter-of-factly.

He blinked. Was that a trick question? "Uh, no."

"Then no." She was getting better at lying to him, she decided when he didn't seem to have an answer for that. It helped that he was still distracted by the not a man thing, too.

"You don't have a boyfriend," he said after a second.

She turned around and, shaking her head dazedly, pulled the comb out of his hand before he could react. "You know, you may be a genius, but sometimes I wonder how you can even cross the street without tripping over your own feet."

He reached for the comb but wasn't able to pry it out of her hand. "What does that mean? Why are you being so cryptic tonight, anyway?"

"Who's cryptic?" she retorted. "I'm just talking. If you can't figure out what's going on, that's your issue."

"You know you're doing it."

Heaving a sigh, she set the comb down in her lap. "I don't even know what I've said tonight that's cryptic in the first place, so it'd be kind of hard for me to be doing it on purpose. Chill, Bobby. Sit down and we'll watch TV or something."

"I don't want to . . .!" He tore a hand through his hair in annoyance. "I just want to understand what you're talking about when I converse with you, is that so unusual?"

"Yes," she said simply, wondering as she started to comb her hair again how far he'd let her goad him before he blew up.

"Why?"

"Why, what?"

"Damn it, Alex!"

She hid a smile. "Would you please calm down? I don't know what you're all worked up about, anyway. I told you the whole story of my conversation with my mom, it's not like I'm hiding anything new from you!"

"New?" he repeated, pouncing on the word, which had seemed out of place in her statement. "So there is something you're hiding from me?"

"Maybe I'll tell you if you volunteer to go make popcorn," she said with a sweet smile. "It'd put me in the right mood, you know?"

He gave her an incredulous look, then let out a disgusted breath and headed for the kitchen, asking over his shoulder, "What kind of mood do you need to be in before you can tell me what you're hiding?"

"Who says I'm hiding anything?"

"You're . . . I . . .!" She heard his fist thump against the kitchen wall, followed by a groan of annoyance.

"Your face is turning red, Bobby," Alex called.

He threw the bag of popcorn into the microwave and scowled at the wall that blocked his view of her. "You can't see me, so how would you know what color I am?"

"Because I know you. And you turn red when you get frustrated about running out of leads." She stretched out lengthwise on the couch, relishing the opportunity to rest her back, as she listened to the popcorn begin to pop and Bobby continue to be silent. He was definitely nearing the limits of his patience, but the problem was that she didn't know exactly where the end of his patience was - she'd never attempted to push him to it before. She hoped that she'd have enough warning before he broke to put on her most disarming smile.

The popping began to slow down and Alex shifted her weight nervously. He was still standing silently in the kitchen, and silence was an unnatural state for her partner. "Bobby?"

"What?"

"How come you're not talking?"

His only answer was the sound of the microwave door opening and then banging shut. She listened to him open the bag of hot popcorn, waiting anxiously for the sound of his footsteps returning to the room.

"What do you want me to talk about? he asked as he re-entered the room. "Given that you're intent on talking in riddles tonight, and I don't feel like talking to myself."

"I thought you wanted to talk about what I'm hiding," she said placidly.

Bobby blinked. "I did. I mean, I do. Sit up." Not letting her even try to do it alone, he put an arm under her shoulders and lifted her upper body so that he could sit under it, then laid her back down with her head on his legs and smoothly dropped the bag of popcorn on her stomach.

"Hot!" she squeaked, more from reflex than anything else. Sure, the bag was hot, but her clothes were between it and her, providing protection. "That wasn't nice, Bobby." That said, she left the bag lying on her stomach for the time being and calmly reached into it for a handful of popcorn.

He looked down at her, watching her munch on the popcorn. "Are you going to talk, or am I going to have to pry it out of you?"

Alex stopped chewing and gave him a thoughtful look. "Depends on how you intend to do the prying."

"Uh . . ." He searched his brain for something he could threaten her with, but couldn't think of anything that she'd dislike that he could bring himself to do.

"Ok, as far as interrogation techniques go, the 'uhhh' one sucks," she told him, imitating his mumble. "Try again."

"I could take away the popcorn."

"I won't let you have it. The warm bag feels good on my stomach," she protested, playing along as she tried to decide what to do to annoy him next.

"So I'll put my hand there instead," he shot back. "You said it's just as good."

Alex took a second to double-check with herself that he'd actually said that. "Dare you."

"Dare me to what? Pry it out of you, or take the popcorn?"

"Both."

He plucked the bag out of her hands without further comment. "There. Now talk."

"That was only the popcorn, not the prying," she pointed out, pouting.

"Alex, so help me, if you don't start talking . . ."

She glanced at the bag of popcorn in his left hand, then grabbed his right hand andsettled it under her shirt over her ribs. "Hmm, better. Warm. Now, what is it you want me to explain, again?"

"Why I'm not a man." He was so busy watching his hand rise and fall with her breathing that he actually got the words out without stumbling on them.

"Oh, that. Haven't you ever heard someone use the line 'He's not a mmph, he's my mmph'?" she asked, replacing the nouns with a closed-lip grunt to indicate fill in the blank here.

"Yeah, but that doesn't explain how it applies to me."

She shrugged. "You're not a man, you're my partner."

He stared down at her in consternation, then raised his eyes and looked away. "Oh. I thought maybe it was . . . something different."

"Like what?" she asked with genuine curiosity. She'd expected him to be stung by her explanation - that was part of the reason she was giving it in the first place - but she hadn't anticipated him suggesting a different interpretation.

He kept his eyes off her, but his free hand dropped the popcorn bag and rose of its own volition to touch her hair, spreading out the still-damp strands over his thighs. "I, uh . . . I mean, I wasn't thinking it was anything specific . . . I was just thinking that maybe it wasn't that. What you just said it was, I mean."

She refrained from making a comment about his obvious nervousness. "Why's that?"

"Well, it's just that saying a guy doesn't count as a man to you . . . would usually indicate that you see him as asexual. Or effeminate, I suppose."

Her eyebrows rose a fraction of an inch at his choice of words. "Asexual, huh?"

A muscle twitched in his jaw, but his hand remained relaxed on her head and he didn't speak.

"You got a reason for thinking I don't see you as asexual, then?" she prodded, fascinated by his reaction to this conversation.

He flexed his fingers slightly over her stomach. "I just thought that . . . you know, some of the things you've said have seemed like . . ." He stopped there, unsure how to end the sentence. They've seemed to indicate that you want me to throw you over my shoulder and take you to bed? Or maybe they've seemed like you enjoy kissing me way too much for either of us to be sexless?

"Bobby?" she prompted when she noticed that his eyes were starting to glaze over. "Things I've said have seemed like . . . what?" It was extremely interesting, to Alex's way of thinking, that after the myriad ways she'd come on to him in the past week, he could still think she might not be interested. Obviously his self-confidence was slightly lacking when it came to women, or at least to her.

"Have seemed like you definitely thought of me as . . . uh, male." He looked down at his hand again, remembering the day he'd spent hours in bed with her, his hand stretched across her abdomen as he watched her sleep.

"You're turning red again," she informed him with a tiny smile. "What are you thinking about?"

"Nothing, really." He was aiming for a careless tone, but his words came out sounding lifeless, instead.

"Hey." She reached up to touch his cheek softly. "You want to know why I felt like that was the right thing to say? Besides so my mom didn't freak out, I mean."

He started at the touch of her hand, pulling her hair as his hand jerked.

"Ow!" She dropped her hand from his face to his hand and, covering his with hers, slid it out of her hair, relocating both their hands to the couch, near her hip. "I want to keep my scalp attached to the rest of me, if you don't mind."

"Sorry. Uh, yes, I would like to know."

Alex sighed, wondering if she was about to make yet another in the long line of mistakes she'd been making with him since he started taking care of her. "Even if I did see you as, uh, not asexual," she began, careful to couch her words in a hypothetical, "you've been doing everything you can to make it clear that you don't want me thinking of you like that. I just figured maybe I should start accepting it." Her words were mostly true, although in reality she was far from accepting anything of the sort.

"What?" he blurted staring down at her. "When have I done that?"

"Well, let's see." She pulled her hand out of his and began ticking things off on her fingers: "When you kissed me that first day and I started kissing you back, you almost dropped me in your rush to get away from me . . ."

"Alex, that -" he attempted.

She waved her hand at him, silently ordering him to be quiet. ". . . the fact that up 'til tonight, you've been trying to keep from touching me as much as I'd let you get away with . . ."

"That's not -"

"The fact that you've spent the past week sleeping almost fully clothed . . ."

"Sweatpants aren't exactly -"

"Yeah," she said with a snort, "sweatpants and a long-sleeved shirt. And that's on the days you bother to change out of your work clothes at all. And did I mention the way you desperately avoided the question when I asked last week whether you liked kissing me? Oh, and then there's -"

"Enough!" he broke in, putting his hand over her mouth and glaring at her. "I get your point, but your interpretation of those things is flawed."

She stuck her tongue out against his palm and smirked up at him when he yanked his hand away. "How is it flawed?"

"Because you set yourself on a path of induction that first day, and -"

"Hold on," she interrupted. "English, please."

"That was English, and I know you know what induction is, but fine. You came to a conclusion on that first day, and you've been fitting everything that happened since to fit that theory."

"Not a chance, Goren. Don't try to tell me I made this all up," she snapped.

"I'm not saying you made it up. I'm just saying that there's an alternative viewpoint."

"And what is that alternate viewpoint? Do tell."

He opened his mouth, took a deep breath in preparation to talk, then abruptly closed it again. "Damn it."

"What now?"

"You purposely backed me into this corner."

"Corner?" she echoed, pointedly looking around the room. "We're nowhere near a corner, sorry."

"Verbal corner, Eames. You've been maneuvering the whole conversation to get us here."

Back to her last name, she noted. She'd definitely gotten under his skin. "So what if I have? Not that I'm admitting any guilt," she added. "But if it happened to be true, why would you have a problem with it?"

"It's not polite to manipulate your friends," he said, trying for humor.

"Is that what you are?" she asked, using the same infuriating intonation that Deakins had used earlier in the day when he asked her a similar question.

"What else would I be?"

"You have to answer my question before I'll answer yours."

"Fine. Yes, I'm your friend. Now answer my question."

"Ok." She paused, making a show of idly adjusting her shirt and pushing back her hair, wasting time until she could tell he was about to lose patience. "You could be any number of things, along with being a friend. Boyfriend, mortal enemy, friend with benefits, best friend . . . you get the picture."

"Should I bother to ask what a 'friend with benefits' is?"

"Probably not, considering you want to avoid having my father think you're using me for sex."

He choked on a breath at the mention of her father and sex in the same sentence. "He thinks that?"

"Nah. At least, not yet. Right now he seems to think I'm using you, for god-knows-what purpose. Mid-life crisis, maybe."

He sighed. "That's not much better. And I don't think women are allowed to have mid-life crises."

She copied his sigh. "Well, there goes my plausible deniability."

"For what?"

"For the fact that I'm spending my night having this conversation! I have to be irrational in some way, because there's no way a sane Alex would spend all this time and energy just trying to get you to spill your guts."

"You started the conversation," he pointed out. "And exactly what guts am I supposed to spill?"

She stared at him for a long second, then blinked and slowly shook her head. "You remember what I said earlier about being surprised you can cross the street?"

"Uh, yeah."

"I'm downgrading that to 'I don't know how you get out of bed in the morning without falling on your face'."

He frowned. "You know, if you're going to insult me, it would be more polite to do it so I understand exactly what you're insulting."

"The day you start telling me what you're actually thinking during a conversation is the day I'll start tailoring my insults to fit your obliviousness." She gave him a cool smile. "And so far, today's not looking good."