A/N: I promise you all, I am still working on WHBH. It's just really, really slow going, because my muse seems to have forgotten what the hell she was talking about.


Eames checked her watch that evening and then looked up at the pair of detectives standing next to her desk. "You guys are mine for the foreseeable future, right? You're on loan until we get this thing solved?"

The detectives, Watson and Higgins, both newly-promoted men in their early thirties, exchanged a look, then turned back to her and nodded vigorously. "Yes, ma'am," Watson said. "We're, uh . . . we're yours."

Eames, choosing to ignore how close they appeared to be to breaking into schoolboy-like giggles, just nodded. "Higgins, your file says you went to CUNY. Is that right?"

Higgins glanced at his partner, who shrugged, and then nodded warily. "Is that a problem?"

"Just the opposite," she replied absently, focused on searching her desk for the print-out she needed. When a few seconds of hunting failed to turn it up, she sighed and stretched a hand out to tap on her partner's desk. "Bobby, do you -"

"Here." Before she could even finish her request, he had slid another copy of the print-out across to her and gone back to the search he was doing on his computer.

"Thanks." She gave the paper a quick look to make sure it was the right one, then turned and handed it to Higgins. "Ok, here's the deal: both of these girls were graduate students at CUNY. We don't know if it means anything at this point, but we need someone to talk to their dean and try to figure out if they had anything else in common so we know whether to pursue it. You think you can handle that?"

"Yes, ma'am," Watson repeated, snapping to attention almost comically. "Uh, when do you want us to do this?"

"Oh, I don't know," she sighed, slumping back in her chair and interlacing her hands over her abdomen. "Yesterday would be preferable. Tonight would be ok, if you're not afraid of tracking the dean down at home. Tomorrow morning's an acceptable alternative if you are."

"Ok. What about -"

"And don't call me 'ma'am'," she tacked on, wondering if the case had somehow turned her into a matron who looked like a ma'am.

"Right," Higgins said nervously. "Uh, sorry, uh . . . Detective. Detective Eames. We'll do this tonight, don't worry."

"We will?" Watson muttered under his breath, looking at his partner in surprise.

"We will," Higgins replied through his teeth.

Eames hardly registered the exchange as she tried to sort through her thoughts for any other instructions to give the men. "I want to get a call from you as soon as you're done, guys. Me. Or Goren," she added, tipping her head toward her partner. "You report to no one else. Got it?"

Both men nodded.

"Ok. Thank you. Good night." Not wanting to field any more questions from the overeager men, she dismissed them with a short nod and lowered her eyes, keeping them down until the men's retreating feet were out of sight.

"You have an interesting effect on the male portion of the task force," Goren said conversationally a few minutes later, making her jerk her head up in surprise.

"What?" she asked, blinking.

He shrugged. "Well, you've got Kratzer and D'Argenzio wrapped around your little finger. Straub would probably do anything you asked if it meant he could get you into bed. And now Higgins and Watson - you're lucky they didn't get any drool on your desk."

"You're not funny," she snapped, unable to see any humor in the fact that she might be being treated differently because of her sex.

"I wasn't trying to be funny. I was just pointing out a fact."

"Yeah, well, it's not a fact. Don't you have work you should be doing instead of watching me, anyway?"

Shaking his head, he turned off his computer's monitor. "No. It's late, Eames. I was just waiting for you to finish up before I head out."

"You don't have to wait around for me," she said, closing her laptop and giving him a hard look. "Especially if you're just going to wisecrack the whole time."

"It seemed like the polite thing to do."

With a snort, she stood up and began gathering her belongings. "Since when are you concerned with being polite to me? And, for that matter, since when do you have to actually think of a reason to stay at work late?"

Goren just sighed. "I'm not fighting with you over this. We're both too tired and stressed out to be reasonable."

"Hah." She looked around the room quickly, making sure there was no one else within earshot, then leaned slightly forward and hissed, "You're probably just afraid to be alone with me during a fight, after last night."

Stunned by both the suddenness of the attack and its direction, he could only stare at her, open-mouthed. "Last night was -"

"I'm going home," she cut him off, snatching her purse from under her desk. "I suggest you do the same."

"Eames!"

She sighed and just looked at him, unable to keep her glare from weakening after a few seconds. "Forget it. Like you said, I'm tired." Shouldering her purse, she took a few steps toward the elevators, then turned back and offered him a meager smile. "I'll see you in the morning, Bobby. Good night."

Still trying to get a handle on the rapid changes her mood had undergone in the past few minutes, Goren just nodded wordlessly and watched her go.


The ringing of her phone dragged Eames out of a very pleasant dream involving Derek Jeter much later that night. Forcing her eyes open, despite the sleepy sting it caused, she squinted at her bedside clock and saw that it was nearly one o'clock in the morning. A call that late at night was probably one of three things: a family emergency, a sleepless partner, or Higgins and Watson reporting in. Hoping for the third, she managed to hook a finger into the phone cord and drag the phone across the nightstand until she could pick up the receiver. "Hello?" she mumbled into it, closing her eyes again.

"Uh . . . Detective Eames?" asked a tentative male voice.

Not Goren, and not a family member. "Yeah. Hold on," she told the caller, then pulled the receiver away from her ear long enough to drag the whole phone into her lap and sit up against the headboard. "Ok, sorry about that. Go ahead."

The caller coughed. "Uh, yeah. This is Frank Watson. You know, from the task force? Sorry it's so late . . . we just, uh, we remembered you said you wanted to hear from us as soon as we were done with the dean, and -"

"Yeah, I remember," she interrupted impatiently. "Did you get something from him?"

"Actually, yes," Watson said, sounding proud of himself. "Both of the dead women were in the Sociology department, and they had the same advisor."

That woke her up. Stiffening, she opened her eyes and stared into the dark with a growing smile. "Who?"

"Guy named . . ." There was a pause, and the sound of papers being shuffled. "Robert Daugherty."

"Never heard of him," she said through a yawn.

"Me either," replied Watson, "but . . . oh, wait, hold on. Higgins looks excited, I think he's got something."

She could hear the sound of the two men talking on the other end of the line, but couldn't make out their words. With a sigh, she closed her eyes again and let her head fall back against the headboard. "Watson?"

"Uh . . . uh, yeah, sorry," he said a few seconds later. "Jimmy pulled Daugherty's records, and he's got a sheet."

"For what?"

"Sexual harassment . . . followed by violation of a restraining order issued in that case. He got a suspended sentence because he's a contributor to society, or some shit like that."

The familiar bolt of adrenaline that always accompanied a good lead shot through her. "Watson," she said, jumping to her feet and flipping on the light.

"Yeah?"

"Are you guys at One PP?"

"Yes ma' - uh, Detective. Is that ok?"

"What? Oh, yeah. Listen, leave everything you got tonight on my desk and then go get some sleep, ok? I'm coming in to look it over."

Watson's surprise at her reaction was audible in his voice when he said, "Uh . . . ok. Are you sure you don't want -"

"No, no. You guys need to get some sleep if you're going to work tomorrow. I've already got mine, so I'm going in. Oh, and Watson?"

"What?"

"Thank you." Not waiting for him to reply, she hung up the phone, then reached for a pair of jeans with one hand and picked up the phone again with the other, tucking it between her ear and her shoulder and pounding out her partner's number on the keypad. He'd be just as pleased as she was at this news, and he'd want to join her.

Both hands free once she had the number dialed, she concentrated on wiggling into the jeans, which she'd left in a heap a few hours ago when she went to bed, while the phone rang in her ear.

One ring, then another. She zipped and buttoned the jeans.

After three rings, she started to wonder what he was doing, given that he normally answered nighttime calls from her fairly quickly.

A fourth ring, and she was just getting ready to hang up and try him again once she got to work when the ringing abruptly stopped, replaced by the sound of a receiver being fumbled. "Bobby, it's me," she began, wanting to relay the message quickly so they could both get moving. "I got -"

"Bobby's . . . occupied," interrupted a female voice. "May I ask who's calling?"