Sophie woke with a sour taste in her mouth and two cold feet. She was too tall for this makeshift camp bed, and it was too narrow for more than one person. Not that it had hindered them much last night. She tugs lightly on her left arm, freeing it from underneath bare skin that isn't her own to push both palms into her eyes, a feeble attempt to avoid the inevitable. What the hell has she done? She's not hungover because she wasn't drunk. Neither of them were. She groans, pulling her knees up under the blanket to find some warmth.

She shouldn't be here. She was all for positive female sexuality – she was queen of that camp lately, and the sex last night had been good, really good – but this one was different. Even if she could sneak out, which has been her MO, this couldn't be a simple hit and run. Unless she skipped out on all her friends, this one she would absolutely have to see again.

She looks around the dim basement room, briefly pondering how much of her time is spent underground lately, before turning to face the still sleeping Renee Montoya. The usually hard-faced Detective is softened in sleep, lighter somehow despite the gloomy room they're in. She looks peaceful and Sophie feels….something. It doesn't make this any less fucked up but it's not an entirely unwelcome sensation either. No, stop it! This woman bulldozed into their lives with her missions and demands, making everything so much more complicated when they really could have done without after Kate and the Sionis'. She'd put them in danger, brought Alice back into their lives and forced them into a partnership with her, and there was still so much she wasn't telling them – Sophie was sure of it. And by 'them' Sophie suddenly realizes, she means Ryan. The truth of it is she doesn't have to be involved. In any of it. But she can't walk away either. She's spent months telling herself it's about Kate, for the Kanes, for Mary and Luke, even going so far as to admit that she owes Ryan for how she's treated her in the past. But it's more than that. So much more. If it wasn't, Ryan taking Jada's side over hers wouldn't have cut so deeply. She wouldn't have been feeling so betrayed, so alone. She wouldn't have been drinking in the bar beneath Ryan's apartment, losing hope of a second opportunity to argue when in walked an equally tired and alone Montoya.

Thirty one, no career, no girlfriend. Sort your shit out.

She rolls quietly off the bed, creeping through the door into the adjoining basement office where most of their clothes were discarded last night. Dressing quickly, she finds her phone dead in the pocket of her jacket and taps the mouse on Renee's computer to find out the time. 7.03am. She can still make it home before Alice is up at least, maybe even have time to shower and ditch her walk of shame attire. As she turns to leave her eyes skim a small framed photograph tucked behind piles of paperwork – the only personal looking item in the whole space, unless you count the camp bed and change of clothes hung behind the door. The picture is only passport sized, probably taken in one of those old strip booths. Sophie picks up the frame and sees a younger Renee, cheek to cheek with a beautiful auburn haired woman in glasses. Their smiles almost reach the edges of the frame, their joy almost exploding from it into the room. Sophie looks back through the doorway at Montoya, feeling that feeling again – the one she can't name. What the hell has she done?

The short walk back to her apartment goes by too quickly as she finds herself enjoying the feeling of rising sun on her skin. If she wasn't so desperate for coffee, a shower, and to avoid Alice's annoying self questioning her whereabouts, she'd have walked some more, cleared her head a bit, but she knew she was cutting it fine for a confrontation already. Alice usually slumped into the kitchen around 7.30 when she knew Sophie would be making her post workout breakfast. She'd just have to make her own today.

Letting herself in as stealthily as possible – thank you Point Rock military training – she tiptoes across the carpet to plug her phone in and flip the switch on the coffee machine before dashing into the bathroom for a shower. By the time she's brushed her teeth and wrapped a fresh towel around herself her stomach is growling for sustenance. She eyes the clock on her way through her bedroom – 7.47 – Alice is likely slumped at the kitchen table, complaining about the change to their routine. A small price to pay for getting away with the rest.

'I know, I know,' Sophie preempts. 'I woke up late, but there should at least be coffee, and would it kill you to make breakfast for once. I mean, you live here rent free, eat my food, drink my wine, steal my clothes – '

'Is that why you're not wearing any?'

Sophie stops dead in the doorway, eyes frozen on the person sat in her kitchen. Not the woman she'd been expecting.

'Ryan…what…er, what are you doing here?'

'I tried calling, like a million times, but your phone was off. I was worried.'

Sophie's cheeks flare as she realizes that she's standing there completely naked but for a towel that's rather short on her long body. She feels her insides churning as she thinks about where she was while Ryan was worried but then she remembers what had led her there in the first place and she stiffens.

'Now you're worried? I'm a big girl, Ryan.' Her words come out a little harder than intended and she has to look away as Ryan narrows her eyes. 'We don't have to answer to each other,' she adds a little softer, busying herself pouring some freshly brewed coffee.

'Sophie I'm sorry. You're clearly feeling some things and I know a lot of that is because of me, but we don't have time to deal with it right now. Mary is missing. She went all green fury and knocked Luke unconscious, and the last thing he remembers is her and Alice having some kind of weird little meeting of the warped minds girl talk. I couldn't get hold of you so I thought maybe Alice had, and I know we have a lot of shit to sort out and I know you're mad at me right now, but these are our friends, Soph, and they need us, so I need you.'

Sophie puts her mug on the counter, letting out the breath she's been holding onto. 'You really should have led with that.'

She strides over to Alice's room with purpose, though she already knows she's not there. 'Dammit Alice, what have you done now!'

'I don't actually think she did it this time,' Ryan replies from uncomfortably close behind her. 'She just didn't do anything to stop it either. Montoya has been fixated on Poison Ivy since the beginning – I should have paid more attention instead of focusing on…'

'Yeah, well,' Sophie drops her gaze again and heads past her towards her own room. 'Like you said, no time for that now.' It's cold, she knows it's cold, not to mention not accurate, but she's accumulating a whole bunch of negative feelings at the moment and she can't help but unleash some on Ryan. 'I'll get dressed, find out if Luke has anything yet.'

'Why didn't you notice that Alice wasn't home?'

'Excuse me?' Sophie is immediately on the defensive and she knows that Ryan sees it.

They're heading to talk to the owner of a stolen car about two miles south of Wayne Tower. Someone saw a woman wearing Alice's particularly unique style of clothing using a gadget with Wayne's particularly unique tech to break into a brand new eco drive. Luke can't get into the GPS without a specific nine digit code that they're hoping the environmentally conscious owner can give them because GCPD hadn't got around to filing it yet. A stolen car was pretty low on their list of priorities and the Batteam hadn't wanted to alert Montoya about misplacing Alice until they absolutely had to.

'Alice didn't come home and you didn't think that was an issue? I'm not saying you're responsible for her whereabouts at all times but we could have got a jump on this if we'd known.'

'I was asleep. Stressful day.'

Ryan side eyes her through the slits in her cowl, choosing not to bite.

'Montoya is going to lose it if she finds out.'

'She won't.'

'You haven't had to deal with her as much as I have – trust me, Montoya's gonna hand us our asses if we don't fix this and fast.'

Sophie looks through the tinted window of the batmobile, trying to focus on the rapidly passing cars, road, anything other than the words Montoya's, hand and ass all coming out of Ryan's mouth in just one sentence.

'So we fix it.'