Authors' Notes: Hey looky here another update! And not a pretty one... feel free to take cover, you have been warned. But before we get to that a quick reply to one of our faithful anon reviewers.

Garine: :) And yes, that made me laugh out loud too when Drowsy posted it... I honestly about died I swear. It was SO Murdock.

Now on with the show, feel free to take cover where you need to.

Charissa stood and began to clean up from Breakfast, she needed to do something to keep her head clear and from going down the hall and asking Face what his problem was even though she knew the answer already. She hated to make him worry, to make him get on edge but he needed to understand that she could do this and get out alright. Sure she had had some close calls recently, but so had he and she wasn't getting all upset over him doing something that was dangerous, sure she worried but she knew he could take care of himself.

Murdock began doing some dishes, and Hannibal waited and watched by the window, sometimes glancing through the articles he still hadn't read from the paper.

She helped Murdock silently, drying while he washed, her eyes lifting and glancing down the hallway before lowering to what she was doing again. The air filled with the sounds of the occasional turn of a page, the clanks of dishes and the slopping of the water in the sink, plus a roar of silent tension. Again she glanced towards the hall and sighed, "I'll be back." She said quietly and headed down to Face's room and knocked at the door, "Everything okay in there?"

"It's fine." Face said, trying to remain calm. He'd gotten dressed and was trying to work up a calm enough attitude to walk out again. He admired Charissa's strength and bravery, he knew he did, and he liked it when she helped. But there was something in what B.A. had said, something that had just rubbed him the wrong way, like he'd just gotten dunked in a vat of ice water.

She knew better, "No. It's not." He was trying to remain calm, but he wasn't doing too good at it in her opinion, "You can't keep doing this, I know you don't like it when I do this stuff. I respect the reasons, but Face like you told me once, Hannibal considers me a part of this team so I've got to do it. Who else?" She sighed, "I'm not asking you to like it, I'll admit I don't like it when you do something completely and insanely dangerous either, but it's what you do. Hell when we were first together I'd lose sleep when I didn't hear from you for days on end, knowing that you could be laying out there somewhere dead and no one knew."

Face opened up the door, glaring at her, all hope of any good mood gone. He was hostile like a wild animal. "For God's sake Charissa, it's not like I have some kind of immortality cheat and you don't, but that's not the fucking point." he pushed past her and stormed down the hallway.

She turned and followed after him, if he wanted to this now then fine they'd do this now, "So then apparently I'm missing the fucking point so why don't you explain it to me? And really? Do you think I'm that naïve to believe that you're invulnerable?" She managed to catch up to him, "Did you not hear what I just said? And I still have that issue; do you know what my worst fear is? What I have nightmares about? The fact that one day I'll have to watch you get shot and this time you won't get back up from it. Or another boat will explode and you'll be on it and that'll be it. None of us have an immortal card to play in our hands."

"Why are you still talking?" Face asked, tuning out everything she had to say. "And we are certainly not discussing this now, so you can forget whatever it is you've just said. I know I have." he continued out the door.

She bristled; his words hurt ever so slightly it was like he was saying it didn't matter and that bothered her, it took the wind out of her sails for a moment as she stood there glaring at his retreating form, "You know what, fuck you." She shook her head and did an about face and headed back down the hall slamming the door shut so hard it made pictures fall from the wall down the hallway as she paced up and down his room trying to cool off.

Face barely heard her; his head was still buzzing with anger and he jabbed his thumb repeatedly on the button for the roof, the next floor above their heads.

Murdock heard the slamming and yelling and slowly wandered to where the pictures had been knocked down. As he replaced them, he glanced towards the room she'd gone into. "You gonna break anything else?"

She wanted to break a lot more, but she didn't. When she was angry and pissed off she had a tendency to get violent about it. She wasn't sure why or which side of her family it came from. She moved to the door and leaned against it, "No. Sorry." Her voice betrayed the fact she was fighting with her own emotions, which was a mixture of hurt, anger, frustration and that need that he brought out in her even when she was mad as hell at him.

"Just that I don't wanna get glass all over my hands." Murdock added quietly as he righted a picture, peeking in the door at her.

"Right." She was slowly calming down but not fully. There was just some things that pacing wouldn't take care of, "I should've just let him be, but damnit I'm tired of him treating me like I'm…fragile or something. I'm not going to fucking break." A thought hit her; she wondered if it was because he didn't know how to deal with it maybe? Something that he cared about so deeply out there doing stuff he did… but she couldn't quit now. It wasn't possible, she was too far in now and it was too late.

"I dunno if it's you." Murdock said, poking the rest of his head in the door. "When Hannibal talks about you kicking ass and taking names in six-inch heels, Faceman looks like he's just won the lottery."

She laughed, "Then what is it?" That made her mood improve a little as she sat down on the foot of the bed and looked down at her hands, "I'm trying to understand, I know I haven't made some smart decisions currently. I know the second Lynch left my office I should've been on my phone… I get that, but why does he keep doing this? It's going to drive me crazy Murdock." She didn't know what to do, she wasn't good at this stuff and she figured with Face it wouldn't get complicated… boy had she been wrong, " I just wish he'd talk to me, tell me what his problem is."

"Aww, don't go crazy. That's my job." Murdock winked before stting down on the bed, beside her. "I think it's somethin' to do with how we treat you. Or maybe somethin' that B.A. said. That big angry mudsucker shoots his mouth off and sometimes it makes me squirm."

"He doesn't it like it that you all treat me like just one of the guys?" She looked at her friend curiously, "What does he want?" She went back to what had crossed her mind earlier, "Maybe he's having issues dealing with me being out there doing all the same things he does, not in a male chauvinist way but because he… cares, you know, loves me?" It was a thought, it was weird for him to be acting in the way she really should be, it was like they had role reversal issues or something.

Murdock shrugged, falling back on the puffy bed to wave his arms; a wasted effort to make snow angels. "I don't know. I don't think I've ever been in a relationship like that with a girl, so you'd have to ask Face not me."

"I'm not going to ask him that. I can already tell how that conversation would go, probably pretty similar to the conversation we once had about what exactly our relationship status was. It would go nowhere and we'd be back at square one." Though of course this conversation she was talking about had occurred prior to them getting randomly married, but even still the rings just meant that they were legally bound to each other and that alone didn't make a couple husband and wife. She laid back next to Murdock and looked up at the ceiling her hand moving to play with said ring that had taken up residence on the gold chain around her neck.

Murdock busied himself with one of the pillows, fussing a bit. "Or maybe you're right, he's just worried and he's taking it out the wrong way. I don't know. It's Faceman."

Murdock said nothing at that. She was right and wrong at the same time, people were usually like that. With a shrug, he sat up and put the pillow back before heading out to look for Hannibal, who was still perched in the window, smoking a cigar and pointedly ignoring the hubbub that was going on around him.

She stayed in his room for the time being, after a while the events of the morning caused her to doze off a little. Probably something she needed despite getting some rest of the plane ride, but who slept good on a plane anyways? She let herself relax, her body wrapping around one of the pillows, the one that smelled like him the most.

Yeah that was ugly... we promise no more moments like that for a while. And for the record neither Drowsy or myself are sure what Face was having issues with during all of this... we've had speculations but that's as far as it goes.

Thanks for reading. :) We love you guys, seriously.