"Eames?"

"What?" she answered from the kitchen.

He was lying on the couch, arms folded behind his head, eyes half closed. "Uh, did you notice…the cologne?"

"What cologne? Where?"

"On Tiffany's body."

"No, Bobby. I didn't smell the body. That's your job."

"It was the same as on Chrissy's body."

"And why are you bringing it up now?"

"I just thought about it."

"And you didn't think to mention it at the scene?"

"Uh, no. I didn't."

She came into the room and looked at him. "Just like you weren't going to mention the footprint thing?"

"It wasn't on purpose," he protested. "I…I'm just…used to you."

She looked away for a moment before she looked back at him with a small smile. "I know. But we have to work with Stabler and Benson, and you have to get used to verbalizing your leaps of logic, as much as you hate to take the time to do it."

"Can't you just…"

"No, Bobby. You have to take some of this on yourself. I'm not going to be an interpreter or a mediator." She leaned over the back of the couch. "You and Stabler are going to have to find some way to get along."

"What did I do?"

"Bobby…" She sighed. She was tired and not up to explaining to him that accusing Stabler of wanting to shoot that mother was not exactly the socially acceptable thing to do. "Get some sleep, ok?"

"Eames…"

She shook her head. "Please, don't argue. I don't want to get mad at you. Just go to sleep, ok?"

"Fine," he grumbled. He didn't want to argue with her, either. He turned over onto his side and closed his eyes. He heard her leave the room, not certain if she had gone back to the kitchen or to the bedroom. But before he thought to take a look, he was asleep.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Don Cragen rubbed his eyes and sighed heavily. He walked to the door of his office and said, "Olivia, Elliot, get in here. Bring Munch and Fin with you."

He didn't have to wait long for the detectives. "What's up, Cap'n?" Fin asked as he leaned against the filing cabinet.

"I have the commissioner, the COD and the chief on my back over this case. What do we have?"

Bitterly, Stabler answered, "We have Major Case, that's what we have."

Cragen frowned. "You are supposed to be working with Major Case."

Benson said, "Elliot just doesn't like Bobby Goren."

Fin shook his head. "Now there's a cop on the edge. At least he was before he got that partner of his."

She frowned. "Do you know him, Fin? Have you ever worked with him?"

"I been hearin' about him for years, Liv. He worked Narcotics before Major Case, you know."

"And none of us have ever been on the edge, right, Fin?" Munch challenged.

Cragen cut in. "You can't believe everything you hear. Jimmy Deakins puts a great deal of faith in Goren, and Deakins knows good cops. But this is not about Goren. This is about two dead little girls."

"We have squat, Captain," Stabler said. "All we know is that it's the same perp."

Benson said, "We have a prelim from M.E. Rodgers, who works with Major Case, on the first girl. We're waiting for one from Warner on the second one. CSU is still working up what they found at both scenes."

"Ok. Keep me up to speed. I'm putting Munch and Fin on this with you. You two back them up. Find this bastard yesterday, guys. Get to it."

They walked out of the captain's office and Stabler looked at his partner, eyes narrowed. "Going to bat for Goren, Liv?"

"Get off your high horse, Elliot. I don't know why you feel threatened by him, but you better get over it. The captain is right. This isn't about him. It's about these two little girls."

"Threatened?"

"Yes, threatened."

Before they could continue the argument, her phone rang. "Benson... Oh, hi, Alex... Cologne? What about it?... Really? Ok, I'll ask Warner about it... Sure... Did you get him to go to the ER?... Uh-huh... Pig-headed partners?" She looked at Stabler. "Why, no, I have no idea what that's like... Actually, I have three of them sitting right here, listening to every word I'm saying... Ok. Yeah... Call me when you guys go in... Ok. Bye."

Stabler said, "What was that about cologne?"

"Alex said Bobby noticed the same cologne on Tiffany that he did on Christin."

"What cologne is that?" Fin asked.

"A mix of Old Spice and Chanel."

"That's an interesting combination," Munch observed.

Stabler was frowning. "Was he not planning to tell us?"

"They just did, Elliot. Stop looking for reasons to start something, ok? You heard Deakins and Cragen. We have to play nice with Alex and Bobby."

Munch laughed and headed for his desk. Stabler frowned at him. "Keep laughing, Munch, and see who gets stuck with the grunt work."

Fin threw a balled up paper at his partner. "You get us stuck with shit work, Munch, and I'll kick your bony ass all over the friggin' city."

Munch grinned at him. "Promises, promises."

--------------------------------------------------------------

Deakins came out of his office as soon as Goren and Eames came into the squad room. "Get in here now," he told them.

They followed the captain into his office and closed the door. "It's about time you got here," Deakins said. "What's going on with the case?"

Eames shook her head. "Not a lot. We have a few fibers they can't identify, some fluids, and some partials. Unless there's something in one of our inboxes…"

"There's not," Deakins said. "I've been looking." He looked at Goren. "You look better than you did last night. How's your arm?"

"My…? How did you…?" He looked at his partner, and he had his answer. "It's fine."

"I got a call from Captain Garrison at the one-nine, about Sergeant Farmer's wife. They admitted her to psych for observation. He told me what you did. Good job."

Goren just shrugged. "I couldn't let her keep going and hurt herself or someone else."

"I also talked with Don Cragen. Have you had any trouble with Stabler?"

"No. Why?"

"Don was under the impression you might have."

Goren shook his head. "No. No problems."

"All right. Keep it that way. Let me know what's going on. I have more brass on my back than a marching band. Have Logan and Barek give you a hand if you need it. They're between cases."

Eames frowned as she got up. "We've got nothing. What are they going to help with?"

As they headed from the office, Goren told her, "We have a little more than nothing."

"Not much."

------------------------------------------------------------

Crime scene and autopsy photos covered the conference table amid the corresponding reports. Stabler rubbed his eyes. "I'm going to see this stuff in my sleep. We haven't missed anything."

Goren didn't look up. "There's no such thing as a perfect crime."

"Ok," Benson stood up, before there was another argument. She felt like she and Alex had been running interference all night. "We have partials at both scenes."

"And they match each other," Eames said, looking through one of the crime scene reports. "But we don't have anything good enough to run through the databases."

"A two point print isn't going to rule out many," Goren mused. "We need something more than what he left."

"Great," replied Stabler. "I'll add that to our wish list of what to ask the perp for next time he strikes. Maybe the next little girl will give us what we need."

Eames rolled her eyes and walked behind her partner, resting a hand on his shoulder. He was going to quit thinking out loud if Stabler kept it up, and she didn't want that to happen. His musings helped her follow his thinking and sometimes her tangents set him on the right path. She looked at the time. Ten o'clock. "Maybe we should call it a night."

She tightened her grip on his shoulder when she sensed an objection coming. He stayed quiet. Benson rolled her head to work out the kinks in her neck. "Maybe if we take tomorrow to go over this stuff with our own people, fresh eyes will catch something we missed."

"Good idea," Eames agreed, cutting off another objection from her partner. She knew as well as he did that there was nothing he missed, but it was late and she really did not want to referee another debate.

Stabler and Benson gathered their papers together and said good night. Eames sat down across from Goren and looked at him, waiting for him to acknowledge her. He knew she was looking at him, and he finally raised his eyes to meet hers. "You're really ready to call it a night?" he asked.

"Yes. I am. And so are you."

He knew arguing was pointless. "Ok, fine," he grumbled.

He gathered the papers spread across the table. She grabbed his hand. "Don't pout. We'll get back to it bright and early, ok?"

"Bright and early? I thought you didn't do bright and early."

She smiled at his teasing tone. "For you, I'll do almost anything," she grinned.

He watched her grab a stack of files and leave the room. One of these days he was going to call her on that. He was really curious about what "almost" entailed. He gathered together the rest of the files and went out to drop them on his desk so they could head out for the night.