Getting little to no sleep last night hadn't been much of a surprise, her mind too wound up to settle down enough to get any rest.

By the time 3am rolled around, the exhaustion tempted her into going out on the streets, seeing if she could track down Esposito's whereabouts, hoping to find some sort of connection to the information he'd undoubtedly received from Lafayette.

The problem was that she didn't even know where to begin.

On top of it all was the bitter aftertaste of betrayal, the notion that Espo had gone behind her back to convolute with a murder suspect trying find enough proof to render him innocent. Besides the unethical part of it considering that he was a cop and swore to keep a balanced approach to things; it hurt her feelings that he would readily endanger his life for a man he supposedly hadn't seen in years and who, for all they knew, had stolen meds and was experimenting on his patients.

It was an infuriating notion, one that finally made her get out of bed at 6am sharp, take a shower to calm down, running various scenarios through her head on how the morning would unfold and not mustering the appropriate reaction to either one of them.

Would Espo want to talk? Make an excuse for his hot-headed approach the previous night? Would the arguing continue, making it harder and harder to keep the situation from Gates? Or worse, would some unsuspecting uni have found his body by morning, his neck broken like that of the other victims?

Trying to ignore the viable chance for the latter scenario for the time being, she'd headed into work, not surprised when the bullpen was mostly empty, the few tired faces staring back at her seemingly having worked all night.

What she didn't realize right away was that one of those tired faces belonged to Ryan, the Irish detective leaning over his desktop, eyes going back and forth as he was reading about something that seemed to have intrigued him enough to make it an early morning as well.

With a weary smile, she approached his desk, appreciating the detectives' unquestioned dedication when it came to the job.

"Good morning. Catching up on some reading?"

Jerking out of his daydreams, Ryan glanced up at her sheepishly before returning the smile.

"Good morning to you as well. And yeah. After your call about the sketch…I…I didn't sleep well last night so I thought I'd come in a bit early and do some reading."

"Reading on what?"

"PTSD."

The sheer mentioning made her freeze in her spot and she circled the desk to look at his monitor.

"You're worried about Espo?"

"Yeah.", Ryan replied and shrugged, "Something is wrong with him. I looked at different symptoms and such and I guess…I guess…the way his behavior is spiraling out of control is not uncommon. As a matter of fact, it's a predecessor for what's to come. And that scares the heck out of me because I don't want him to hurt himself."

"I don't…I don't think he's gonna hurt himself, Kev. He's too stubborn for that. It's the kind of trouble he's gonna get himself into in the meantime that worries me. He's so…so convinced that Lafayette is innocent that he's blatantly refusing to look at the evidence. And he won't stop until he uncovers whoever is behind all this. But what if he comes across our killer? And what if Lafayette grows weary of having Javi dig around in his affairs, afraid of what he might find and as such…puts out a hit on him too? I can't protect him when he's out there canvassing the streets at night."

Ryan sighed, his eyes traveling back to the article he read, his mind undoubtedly at a completely different place.

Eventually he ran a nervous hand down his tie and shrugged.

"Beckett, I want to be there for him, to help him, to let him know that he can talk to me. But he's just…it's like…he shut down on me. On all of us. And I don't know how to get through before it's too late."

Smiling wearily, she reached down to squeeze his shoulder, knowing that feeling of helplessness all too well.

"You're his best friend. And you are his best bet at this point. All I can tell you is that you can't give up. Keep working on him. If he's ready to listen, he will…"

He opened his mouth to reply when his eyes drifted across the bullpen, following the elevator doors opening slowly, revealing Lanie on the other side.

Unusually stern, the ME glanced across the office, that somber expression softening somewhat when she recognized Beckett standing next to Ryan's desk. And yet, her hands were wrapped tightly around her chest, her stride determined as she joined them.

By the time Lanie arrived, she seemed several shades paler, her jaws clenched as she struggled to find the right words. Eventually she drew in a deep breath and straightened out, before clearing her throat.

"Just what in the hell is going on with Javi?"

In response, Beckett sighed, the peculiar situation feeling like another punch to her gut.

"You too, eh? What did he do now?"

Swaying her head back and forth as she pondered about the right words, Lanie's eyes eventually ended on Ryan.

"Cover your ears for a second, will ya, sugar?"

Nodding obediently, the detective followed suit, pretending to pay attention to his screen even though he wasn't.

"Come on, Lanie, what's going on now?"

"He called me for a booty call last night…", the ME began, her eyes growing somber, "Not that it's anything new. I figured with you guys under the gun with this case, he might be a bit stressed so I said yeah, come over to my place."

"Do I really want to hear this?", Beckett countered, just to have Lanie grasp her arm.

"I swear I have never seen him like it that. It was as if…as if something possessed him. It scared me."

For a moment, Lanie's features lost all the confidence that she normally carried, those straight shoulders slumped at the burden of information she was sharing.

"When things got heated up, he…he ripped my shirt in half and broke my bra. It was bizarre. I tried to get him to back off, see if I could get him to talk. But it was impossible. And once we got going…", all of a sudden, the ME's voice broke completely, her eyes welling up with tears, "He was…he was hurting me. I told him to stop but he wouldn't. He just kept going and going. By the time we got done he just…he just showered and left again like it was nothing."

Nauseated by the frightening experience, Beckett drew in a deep breath and put a hand in front of her mouth, at a complete lack of what to say. Then, as Lanie's tears began to roll down her cheeks, she pulled her best friend into a tight embrace, feeling her entire body shake.

"I am so sorry…", she said and gently rubbed the other woman's back, "We will get this figured out, I promise you that."

"I don't get this. What's been going on here?"

"Says right here that volatile changes in personality can occur during trigger episodes in those suffering from PTSD, leading the patient to leash out at the closest person around, especially those in the inner circle. Those changes can include eating disorders, alcoholism, changes in sexual activity as well as irregular sleep patterns."

Ryan's expression had turned to stone when he said those words, their concerns suddenly becoming dreadful reality.

"This was no change. This was like there was a different person inside Javi's body.", Lanie reiterated before hugging herself again, "That was the complete opposite of what he normally does. He's always gentle and considerate when we make love. This…this scared me."

An oppressive silence spread between the three of them, only adding to the fog of uncertainty that had befallen the bullpen since the beginning of this case. The scary thing was, things seemed to spiral further out of control by the hour now.

"Do you think he's taking those meds?", Beckett wondered, hating herself for even bringing the thought out into the open for fear of it being true.

But for once, she saw the same suspicion in Lanie's eyes as Ryan cleared his throat.

"You think that Lafayette somehow hooked up with him, maybe promised him recovery from PTSD if he takes those meds? You really think Javi would fall for that? I mean, he was the first one to point out his unorthodox treatment methods. I don't see that happening."

"Ryan is right. Espo isn't the kind of guy to chug pills. But I wonder if he was exposed to them in one form or another, maybe forced to take them at the threat of his own life or that if others? It might explain his strange behavior."

As her thoughts drifted to tampered food or water, coffee even, it was Lanie who cut them off with a determined headshake.

"The problem with that theory is that these meds need at least 7-8 days to manifest themselves in a patient's system. That was long before your case started. And he'd have to take them daily, so who's gonna make sure of that? Worse yet, even if he's been on them for that timeframe, and if we reference the high dosages that we found in our vic's body as the standard, they would have started to lose their potency by now, not working well any longer. Additionally, we'd see symptoms, such as high blood pressure and heart rate, headaches."

"Javi did complain about a headache yesterday while we were making phone calls…", Ryan admitted hesitantly and turned a shade paler, "And when he…when he came in, he was looking awful and shaking, couldn't remember the previous evening at all. When I checked on him, his heart was racing…like…crazy fast."

"Oh, this isn't good…", Beckett muttered distraught, trying to keep her expression neutral to retain much-needed control of the situation.

But the problem was, under the circumstances, how much longer would they be able to guarantee just that? Her carefully crafted cover was about to come crashing down like a house of cards, potentially getting the whole team in trouble if Gates found out about the secrecy surrounding the issue.

She was about to call Castle, when Lanie shifted uncomfortably.

"If what we're thinking is true, he's in a lot of trouble. His body won't be able to handle the high dosages much longer. He could literally die from a heart attack in his sleep. If he's still taking them, we need to stop him immediately."

"But how can we be sure? We don't even know how he came into contact with them before this case started?"

"I've got an idea.", the ME said, her eyes travelling back and forth between her and Ryan, "But you won't like it."