Summary: David has to play the hero, too bad Griffin is not a damsel in distress.

Disclaimer: I don't own the Jumper, characters or anything else associated.

Dream Team

Millie was supposed to keep an eye on things outside, but she couldn't help glancing back at David every few seconds. His posture was relaxed, his gaze fixed on the screen of the computer and every few minutes his fingers would brush along the keyboard and he would lean just a little closer to the screen. He looked so confident and in control that she could hardly turn her gaze away.

They were in one of the more dangerous parts of the town in an office of a paladin. It had taken them weeks to find out about this place which was supposed to be a base hiding in plain sight for one of their most important unfinished cases. It wasn't exactly what they had been looking for, but they were taking everything they could get and moving one jump at a time.

It had taken David a few hours to crack the safety protocols on the computer and they were running out of the cover provided by daylight. They haven't found anything useful as of yet.

He was methodically looking through all the files on the hard drive. Up until now he had found a few coded mission reports, some financial data and a big nothing. Now a slide show of pictures appeared on the screen and the coded mission reports he hadn't understood previously started to make an alarming sense.

Millie sneaked another glance at David. His demeanor had changed in a matter of seconds. His body was rigid and he was radiating tension. "David?" Millie called for him in a whisper.

Millie's soft voice gave him the edge he needed to compose himself. "Just keep watching," he whispered back.

DTDTDT

"I don't understand," Millie protested. "Why can't I go with you?"

"It's going to be dangerous," David said. He didn't want to tell her the truth. He didn't want to lie to her either and she wasn't buying vague excuses. He squirmed under her gaze.

"More dangerous than breaking and entering into a paladin's office?"

"Yes, maybe, I don't know…," he sighed. "Look, I may need to leave quickly and we can become separated and I don't want anything to happen to you, so would you just trust me on this one?"

"This has something to do with what you found on that computer," she said. Millie wasn't asking – she could read it in his face. Maybe it was the childhood they'd spent together, maybe she was simply good at reading people, but Millie always more or less knew what David was thinking.

"Yes," he admitted. After eight years of complete, unrestricted freedom of action and movement, he often found her constant questioning both endearing and annoying.

"And you won't tell me what it was," she stated.

"Millie," he took on a pleading tone. "Just, please, stay here, I'll be back."

"You better be," she huffed and turned to go to kitchen to make herself a cup of coffee. Her movement put an end to the discussion.

"So, you'll stay here?" David called to her back. He had to clarify.

"Yes," she replied sharply. She would play along, but that didn't mean she had to like it.

"Thanks," he said sincerely and jumped away.

DTDTDT

He dropped the menu down on the table and waited for reaction. The man at said table took the menu and didn't even glance up. David narrowed his gaze. That was sloppy. The man in front of him was absent-minded and sloppy. The man David knew him to be could afford to be neither. David folded his arms across his chest and waited.

"I'll take steak, rare with fries and beer, any," Griffin said not even looking up from the menu.

David said nothing. He stood there and waited to be noticed – recognized.

"Hey!" Griffin called out a few minutes later, finally fed up with the unmoving waiter. "I said I want..," he stopped when he looked up.

David smiled tightly and took a seat across Griffin. "You need a knock on the head. You're sloppy."

"What the hell are you doing here?"

"I'm glad to see you too," David shot back. "You should be more careful."

"I'm fine," Griffin growled. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"Warning you," David replied. Last time they talked it had really gotten out of hand and, granted, it had been David who turned tail and ran, but it had been no less Griffin's fault than it was David's. They both had had hellish few days and one thing led to another and, well, David was resolved not to let his temper get the best of him again. At least, not until he had said what he came here to say.

"The steak's horrible?"

"You're being followed," David said. "I don't know how they found out, but they've been watching you here for a while and they're planning to act on it. Soon. Today, in fact."

"And you're telling me this why?"

"We were a team," David said quietly, but confidently. For a night they'd been so much more, but it was painfully obvious that neither of them was ready to face the truth that had been left naked after Chechnya and later buried again in the scorching Sahara sand.

"Yeah," Griffin snorted. "A fucking dream team."

David flinched at the harsh words and missed the wince on Griffin's face.

"I know they were watching me," Griffin said. "I've been watching them, waiting them to make a move."

"Why?" David asked.

"How else am I supposed to gather info?" Griffin replied relaxing in his chair.

"Oh," David didn't know what to say to that. It definitely explained the fact that the paladins had managed to set up surveillance on Griffin. He felt rather foolish now.

"I appreciate the sentiment, though," Griffin said a moment later. "And now you should go," he said motioning with his hand towards the door.

The surface of the table was cool under his touch. "Why?" David explored the texture of the table with his fingertips in an effort to hide his nervousness. He didn't want to appear edgy.

"Did you take 'stupid' juice this morning or what?" Griffin asked harshly. "Go back to your girlfriend and take her to the Taj Mahal or something – leave the paladins to me."

The tone of Griffin's speech was eerily familiar to David. He frowned. "The paladin might have some information that I want," he said. Now that the opportunity had presented itself, David realized that a live paladin could tell him most of what he wanted to know. Alone with Millie he would have never taken the risk of trying to capture one, but with Griffin…

"You're not hunting paladins," Griffin stated. His face was the usual mask beyond which David couldn't read anything.

"No. I'm looking for my mother."

"Your mom is a paladin," Griffin snarled leaning forward. "She will have you killed on sight."

"I have to find her," David replied. He did not know how far his mother's indulgence towards him would go, but he just couldn't accept that she'd left him and his father, that she secretly kept an eye on him, that she let him run – he couldn't just let it go. He had to talk to her. He had to know. He had to know how far she went as a paladin and how far as a mother. He had half a chance of having a mother; he was not going to let it go.

Griffin's gaze narrowed. "Is that what you've been doing this past month since you and your girlfriend fell off the grid?" he questioned. "You've been trying to find a way to stick your head in the lion's den? I've told you before…"

"It's none of your business," David snapped.

"No," Griffin said slowly leaning back into his seat. "It's not," his tone was terse.

"So…," David drawled. "You'll let me play in your diner or do I have to find my own paladin?" he gambled. There was half a chance that Griffin would call his bluff or wouldn't care enough and send him off, but there also was half a chance that the man would buy it. He stared intently at Griffin awaiting his answer.