Jean had leaned back in Decker's chair and planted her size 7 standard MP uniform boots on his desk and right smack dab on top of his reports and made herself comfortable as she awaited his answer. Decker on the other hand didn't take kindly to anybody trying to order him around, least of all this woman.

He stood his ground and told her firmly, "I don't have to tell you anything…"

He'd barely gotten the last word out before Jean swung her feet over the side of the desk to the floor and got to her feet. In two steps she was on him and the next thing Decker knew was he'd been slammed up against the wall and he felt something pressing against his throat. Jean had the collar of his jacket in one hand and she had her other forearm pressing against his neck, more specifically she had the metal band on the watch she was wearing pressing into his neck, if she kept it up long enough it'd make a fine impression in the skin and he could try explaining that one to everybody tomorrow.

"I say you do," Jean told him as he struggled with her, every time he tried to throw her off of him she pressed her arm harder against his throat, "You're as deep in this as I am, Roddy, don't pretend you're in any better position. You became an accessory and accomplice the minute you got in that jeep with me, it's your head on the block as well." She dug the watch deeper in against his neck.

Decker choked and struggled with her, but it didn't seem to amount to much and he was already starting to see spots. He managed to get out, "Stockwell's been out of the country for a month, what's he to you?"

"Damn plenty," Jean said, and just like that she took her arm off his throat and knocked him back against the wall again. As he rubbed the sore spot on his neck and choked and coughed, she told him, "While we were out checking out that jet, Stockwell or one of his puppets took a potshot at Hannibal and hit Murdock instead. Do you know how much blood he lost before they even got him to a doctor? Almost a whole liter. Do you know how many stitches it took to close up the .30 caliber hole? Over 20. Whoever pulled that trigger, Stockwell's got blood on his hands…and I intend to take it back, in full and with interest."

Decker glared at her and was able to see that she was actually serious.

"Crazy, you really are," he muttered.

Now it was Jean's turn to stand her ground as she merely replied, "Blood will have blood. It's as simple as that, Decker. Now what have you found?"

"Nothing," Decker told her, "So far as we are able to find out, Hunt Stockwell has not returned to the country since he left in June."

Jean cocked her head to the side and glared at him and said almost nonchalantly, "If I find out you're lying to me, that you had any prior knowledge to his whereabouts, you're next on my list. There's nothing you or anyone else in the damn Army can do to me now to make me fear whatever consequences you could cook up." She didn't give him much chance to respond to that, she merely went up to him and said into his ear without whispering, "You're real dumb, Decker."

"And how do you figure that?" he wanted to know.

"What've you found out about Stockwell?" Jean asked.

Decker shook his head, "Not much."

"Is he DCI? Is he in the Agency?" Jean asked, "Is he CIA?"

"Nobody knows that," Decker told her, "One way or the other."

"Either way," Jean told him, "You're dumb." She walked over towards the window and told him, "We can't keep tabs on Stockwell, but 5 will get you 10 he's keeping them on us. You were aware, weren't you, that we're being watched?"

"What?" Decker noticed she was hinting towards the window and he went to it but she stopped him.

"Of course they're so damn sure of themselves," Jean said, "They don't think we're onto them because intelligence is supposed to be their field, not ours. But I've made sure whenever I came out here, the same man is always out there somewhere, just watching, and waiting. So I've been taking precautions to come out here. I also made sure to sweep the place when you were out, make sure it hasn't been bugged, so far you come up clean, so count your blessings on that one."

He turned to her and asked her, "You expect me to believe you?"

Jean just shrugged helplessly and reminded him, "You always have the option not to." But it was obvious that one was easier said than done.

"What would the CIA want with either of us?" Decker wanted to know.

"Not me," Jean shook her head, "I'm nothing to them…you on the other hand…"

"What about me?" Decker asked.

"Are you really so blind?" Jean asked him as she walked up to him, "Everybody knows your very purpose in life right now is to find the A-Team. So if they are trying to find them…"

Decker was choking on a strangled laugh, "The CIA needs to track the Army to find the A-Team?"

"Just because they have 'intelligence' in their career title doesn't mean they actually practice it," Jean said.

"You can't even prove that Stockwell is in the CIA," Decker said.

"Yes I can," Jean said, "All I have to do is find him."

Decker seemed amused by the sudden turn this conversation had taken and asked as he folded his arms to his chest, "How?"

Jean pointed an index finger to her temple and she told him, "They read minds, didn't you know that?"

One thing Decker certainly wasn't known for was his sense of humor, so it was very out of place for him to even crack a smile, let alone laugh, but right about now he acted like he'd gotten an overdose of nitrous oxide at the dentist's office. Jean was annoyed, but it didn't matter, even if she did tell Decker how she knew that, she knew he'd never believe it. No matter, this may be a long night ahead of them but she had something surefire to shut him up real quick.

"So nice to know you've got a good sense of humor to ya, Roddy," she said as she went over to him and slapped his shoulder, "Maybe that'll come in handy when Bullen brings down the order to replace you."

Decker wasn't laughing anymore, "What did you say?"

"Oh so you haven't heard," Jean said, "You're being booted out again."

Now it was Decker's turn; two steps and he had Jean by the collar of her jacket and had her backed against the wall and he was demanding to know what she was talking about. Jean dug her nails into his hands to get him to loosen his grip and she told him, "You know, Bullen really ought to be more choosey about who he lets his wife hire to clean his house once a week, it's very easy for the walls to develop ears."

Decker was in the middle of going through the motions of slamming her against the wall when she grabbed hold of him and refreshed his memory, "Back, back, my back!"

How he could ever forget, he didn't know. He remembered the sickening sight that had been when they'd been out to the house a couple days before and immediately let go of her. Jean stepped back over to his desk and sat down on the edge of it.

"This is how you react to bad news? And you were in the army?" Jean asked, and then, just to annoy the hell out of Decker she added, "It's no wonder Hannibal dumped you."

She felt a hand grab the back of her collar and heard Decker's voice asking, "What do you mean about Bullen?"

It wasn't anything she could say firsthand. She'd gotten it from a very reliable source, V.C. She'd taken a job cleaning the good General's house once a week for the past few weeks, at his wife's assistance. Nice woman, but incredibly and stupidly naïve given her position as an army wife. But, all the more to work in their favor, what the Mrs. didn't know what wasn't going to hurt anybody, except her husband, which made it a win/win for everyone.

Jean slowly tilted her head back to look up at him and answered, "Just what I said, Bullen's getting rid of you and bringing in someone he feels is more competent to catch the A-Team. You know, they kept Lynch on for 10 whole years, you must rub everybody the wrong way."

"Who?" the one word said it all for Decker.

Jean could appreciate the seriousness of the situation she'd just put herself in given Decker's notoriously bad temper, but she couldn't resist grinning from ear to ear as she pulled his hand away and said, "You're gonna hate this one. You're being outranked."

"By who?" Decker demanded to know.

Jean closed her mouth but couldn't get rid of the smirk as she held up one hand with four fingers extended.

"A general?" Decker asked.

Jean clapped her hands and gestured as if this was a game of charades. Then she got off the desk, started kicking one foot back against the floor and sounded like a disgruntled cow.

"What the hell are you doing?" Decker asked her.

Okay so apparently when Murdock got back he was going to have to teach her some better animal impersonations. She gave him an 'are you serious?' look and asked him, "Does the term 'Bull' mean anything to you?"

"No," he shook his head dismissively.

Jean rolled her eyes, "Guy's name is General Harlan 'Bull' Fulbright, does that ring any bells?"

"No," Decker repeated.

"Why am I not surprised?" Jean asked.

"When?" was Decker's next question.

"Very soon obviously," she said, "He wouldn't have a replacement already picked out if he wasn't tossing you out soon, I'd say sometime within the next 24 hours."

Decker forgot he was in the presence of a woman, unusual one though she was, and let out a few choice words he had for the good General and started to storm off towards the door but Jean grabbed him and yanked him back.

"What the hell are you going to do, Roddy?" she asked, "March over there, bust into his house, drag him out of bed, terrorize his wife, kick him down the stairs?"

"Sounds good to me," he replied.

"Yeah all good and well, except how are you going to explain to him that you found out you're being discharged?" Jean asked. And he stopped as he realized that. She let go of him and nodded condescendingly as she pointed out, "What're you going to do, tell him that you found out from a woman who's married to a member of the A-Team who has never been recognized for his part because he's been in the loony bin for 10 years? And then Bullen's going to want to know how you know me and why I'm not in jail or in any of your files about the A-Team, and how are you going to explain that one? You can try telling him but do you really think anybody's going to believe you? You think anybody is going to be willing to believe that a simple little woman like me?" she milked the sarcasm in those words and the look on her face for all they were worth, "Could possibly be capable of causing half the damage you could tell them about?"

"They haven't met you, that's the only thing standing in the way there," he pointed out.

"Sure, but as soon as they did, they're gonna want to know why you didn't blow the whistle on me long ago," Jean said, "Especially once they find out about all the times I knocked you out, hijacked you, punctured your tires, crashed into you…"

Decker was starting to get depressed revisiting memory lane, and he told her to stop.

"And if word gets out that the A-Team has saved your life not once but twice, what do you think they're going to say then?" Jean asked him, "Face it, Decker, you're in the same boat we all are and have always been in, there's nothing you can do, least of all if you want to do it straight. Now you're like me, you got plenty of blood on your hands for deeds from years past…so a little dirt to add to the mix shouldn't bother you."

Decker didn't even have to ask, it was obvious, just like Hannibal it was plain to see that Jean had a plan. Now, he didn't have a lot of experience in knowing first hand what Smith's plans were unless he happened to be on the receiving end of them, but he knew anything Jean could come up with would be far worse because she was out for blood and looking to bite. So he was surprised when she actually told him what she had in mind.

"You do something you've never done before in your life, bow down gracefully, accept defeat, don't make a scene, and you go home and you lay low a few days," Jean told him, "We'll assume that the Agency is trying to find the A-Team, we don't know why, but it's hardly beyond the realm of possibility. Somebody's got a man staked out here to find out where they are. You're not in charge anymore, they won't be looking at you, tossed out on your ear you won't have any authority or manpower, you won't have anything they'll be interested in. Let them bring Fulbright in, it won't matter, he doesn't know where the A-Team is either and he won't be able to find them, so the CIA still doesn't get their men."

Decker still wasn't convinced though, "Why would the CIA want the A-Team?"

"Who knows?" Jean asked, "Maybe so they can blackmail the Team into doing their dirty work for them."

He looked at her like she was nuts, "You expect me to believe that?"

"Why not?" Jean threw her arms up and raised her voice to the point Decker took a small step back because he thought she was going to snap and jump him, "Everybody knows the A-Team is the best, anybody tries going up against them, they never win, you've gotten your own butt handed to you more times than anyone can count and you were brought into this because you were supposed to be among the best, far better than Lynch, remember? All the crooks in the world can't outsmart the A-Team and if they can't, then the CIA might just have to rely on them for a few of their own missions too, because crooks don't come any bigger than that. Think about it, Decker, all they have to do is say they'll pardon the A-Team if they do so many jobs for them, and then they keep saying 'one more mission, one more mission', and they won't get pardoned."

Even she didn't know where all of this had come from, but putting it all together, it seemed to make sense, even though she could tell Decker wasn't sold on it.

"Think about it, Decker," she said, "In the Army, A-Teams are a dime a dozen, it was only this A-Team that was actually able to hit the bank of Hanoi for all it was worth, and break out of the stockade, and get back here to L.A. and stay off radar for 10 years, and put everything they ever learned in the Forces to work helping the widows and orphans and old ladies and disabled soldiers and mom and pop businesses that every organized criminal in civilization has a target on. They've gone after everybody: protection rackets, loan sharks, crooked unions, drug cartels, kidnappers, motorcycle gangs, a rogue SWAT Team, moonshiners, horse thieves, Nazis, power hungry cultists, corrupt prison guards and wardens and sheriffs and deputies and uniform cops, the mob, terrorists, dictators, diamond smugglers, animal poachers, slave traffickers, tong gang members…" she paused for dramatic effect and pointed out, "I could go on, Roddy, but neither one of us wants to be here all night."

Decker still seemed unfazed by her theory and flatly asked her, "And why would any of this be of any interest to anyone in the CIA?"

"Well can you do it?" Jean asked, "That's the point, they do what nobody else can, nobody means the Agency too. Of course theirs could be a matter of can-but-won't seeing as how there's no money in it, and that's all any organization is truly after. But if they get someone else to do their dirty work for them, then they get to sit back and live high on the hog without getting their hands any dirtier by in-person contact than they already do."

For once Decker seemed to actually be considering what she said, then in one turn that demeanor fell away and he barked at her, "You're insane."

Jean just looked at him, then she shook her head slightly and replied, "I'm far more than just that. And sometime in the next few days, I'm going to give that general a good idea of what it is."

"And how," Decker asked her, "Do you know that the A-Team won't be back before that?"

Lacking Hannibal's finesse for these sorts of answers, she flatly replied, "I'm a Gemini, we know everything."

"I'll just bet," Decker dryly remarked.

"It doesn't matter in any case since you're going to be without the resources to find out," Jean reminded him, "Now, for the last time, about Stockwell…"

"I told you before we don't know where he is," Decker barked at her.

Jean kept her head and calmly responded, "Yeah I know, I already read through all your reports. But I'm keeping my eyes open for him and the minute I find out he's back in this country, he's a dead man. He may be CIA, he may not, it doesn't matter, he's dead." She turned and headed for the door, but just as she started to open it, she closed it again, turned around on her heel and said, "Oh, there's just one more thing."

"And what is that, Columbo?" he sneered.

Very calmly, very reserved, Jean pointed to him and said, as subtly as if she was giving directions to a laundromat, "If you ever put a bullet into one of those guys, I'm going to splatter that wall with whatever miserable excuse for brains you have in that fat skull of yours." Then she resumed a small smile and chippered, "Nighty-night," and headed out the door.

Decker would've taken some small comfort in the idea of being replaced if it meant he wouldn't have to put up with that thing anymore, but he did remember that she knew where he lived. Luckily shooting trespassers was still perfectly legal in this state.

Jean shed the last of her MP disguise and tossed the clothes into the backseat of the car she'd borrowed from the film studio. Then she went over to her car, swung the door open, doubled over in a choking fit that felt like her lungs were being ripped out, and after a couple minutes when nothing came up, she decided it was safe to get into her car. As soon as she pulled the door closed however, all energy was gone and she keeled over the whole front seat and stayed there for a few minutes, breathing heavily and groaning and waiting for the feeling to pass.

She knew she was an idiot for going to Decker this soon and starting everything up again, but it couldn't be helped; it had to be done when the A-Team wasn't here to try and stop her. And she had to get word to Decker about his inevitable replacement. Harlan Fulbright. Boy his parents must've hated him. Admittedly, she didn't know much about the man, but he was a general, just as Bullen, Decker's superior, was a general, and replacing a colonel with a general couldn't be good. Someone who could make it to the rank of general clearly wasn't incompetent enough to let politics or morals or ethics get in the way of his career. That wasn't just a matter of being mean, that was a matter of being smart, well smarter than Decker, and that was something they just couldn't have. She was in no mood to break in someone new by crashing her car into his again and then attacking him like a rabid dog.

He was a minor obstacle though, the real problem was Stockwell. Stockwell was still out there somewhere and he had to come back sooner or later. Decker's lack of imagination, to say nothing of reasonable deduction, disappointed her very much. The last time they saw Stockwell he had over 100 men under his command, transporting a plane loaded with who knew what, out of the country, now if he wasn't CIA, just what did Decker think he was doing and where in the hell did he get all of those men working for him from? They had to come from somewhere, and what could a general nearing his twilight years have to offer if he was on the level?

Ohh, her whole body was hating her now for that little show. Her back hurt clear from top to bottom, her legs still hurt anytime they touched something, and now, possibly a late-set sign of withdrawal, her stomach was constantly turning and flipping on her for no reason. Even her arms were killing her and felt like they were about to fall off. She'd doped herself up as much as she could on the weaker pills so she'd be able to go in and do what she'd just done without screaming in agony every single time she moved; that performance waited for nothing, Belushi would probably have been proud.

The top was up on the convertible but the windows were down and let the cool night air in. That air, there was just something about it, it was absolutely intoxicating for sleep. Jean stretched out against the front seat and felt her feet touch the door. She was just too tired, and too sore, and too miserable, to even think about starting the car up and driving home, so she decreed to just stay here in the parking lot for the night. What the hell could possibly happen to her here?

Stevi opened the front door and all but threw herself into her boyfriend's arms, exclaiming, "Oh Tony!"

In return, the man stepped into the house and kicked the door shut behind him and asked Stevi, "Are you alone now?"

"Oh yes," Stevi told him, "You don't have to worry about that. Tony, I want to talk to you."

"What about?" he asked.

"Oh, not here," Stevi grabbed his hand and pulled him over to the stairs, "Let's go up to my room."

That statement took him a bit by surprise, but he recovered quickly and asked Stevi, "Well if you're alone, why can't we talk down here?"

Stevi just smirked at him and asked tauntingly, "What's the matter, Tony, you scared about something?"

He gave her a sharp glare for a second, and then he took the stairs two at a time, with Stevi following right behind him.

"So you finally get rid of that walking scarecrow?" he asked her as they headed up, "The…fruitcake with the baseball cap?"

"Oh you mean Murdock," Stevi told him, "Yes, he and I have gone our separate ways."

"That so?" Tony asked as they reached the top landing and headed down the hall to her room.

"Oh absolutely," Stevi assured him, "His energy was totally dead, man, ya know?"

Stevi got ahead of Tony and turned on the lights, Tony looked around the room and commented, "Not very personalized, is it?"

"Well I just moved in," Stevi explained, "Once my entourage gets here, there'll be a lot of eclectic energy surging through this place."

"Uh huh," Tony reached over and placed a hand on her back and asked, "And how long do you reckon that'll be?"

"Well they ought to be arriving in a couple…"

Stevi's words were cut off as they both watched Murdock enter the bedroom dressed in a set of silk pajamas that for some reason gave him slight resemblance to a matador and without a word he shuffled his feet over to Stevi's closet and began sorting through everything on the hangers and started pulling dresses and gowns off the rack and holding them up against himself and looking in the mirror. Then he turned and held a rather fetching and borderline see-through gown that looked like an old fashioned negligee, up to Stevi to get an idea how it'd fit her and how she'd look in it.

"Got rid of him, eh?" Tony asked Stevi, "Then what's this?"

Stevi looked embarrassed. Murdock put the gown back and pulled out another one and held it up to himself first and then to her again. Stevi pushed him back and demanded to know, "What are you doing here?"

Looking very innocently about the whole thing, Murdock explained nonchalantly, "I thought you might want me again."

"Again?" Tony asked.

"Certainly, I was here earlier tonight," Murdock answered.

Tony's eyes bugged out and he looked like he was going to lose it. Stevi pushed Murdock over to the door and slammed it on him.

"Tony," Stevi went over to him to explain, "I did get rid of him earlier, but he came back tonight…"

"In silk pajamas no less," Tony noted.

"Oh," Stevi waved that off, "That's ridiculous, those aren't his pajamas, they're mine."

Tony glared at her and repeated, "Yours?"

"Tony," Stevi said as she pressed herself against the door, "You're the one who said when two people's energies sync like ours do, that you shouldn't have to limit yourself to one person because our karma can endure it and get strengthened by it, why does it matter if I'm still with Murdock?"

"I'm not opposed to either of us seeing other people, I have no problem with you being with that walking broomstick and me, just not at the same time," Tony told her.

Murdock stood on the other side of the bedroom door with his ear pressed against it so he could hear every single word exchanged between the two of them, and also to keep on alert at the first sound of trouble. He listened to their conversation and found himself nodding and shaking his head in agreement and disagreement with a lot of the things they were saying.

He heard footsteps moving from the door and he quickly moved to the side so nobody crashed into him on the way out. The first person out was Tony, who stopped in his tracks and looked Murdock up and down and started barking at him, demanding to know, "What're you doing here!?"

"Well I live here," Murdock told him.

"Oh you do, eh?" Tony asked, looking from him to Stevi and then back to the pilot again, before storming out and down the stairs.

"It's too bad you didn't hook up with someone named Cliff," Murdock told Stevi.

"Why's that?" she asked.

"Because then I could say," Murdock called down the stairs loudly, "Goodbye, Cliff, I hope you fall off your name!"

They heard the front door slam shut and a few seconds later heard a car start up and pull out of the driveway. Once the coast seemed clear, everybody came out of hiding. Face and Hannibal emerged from behind the curtains at the large windows downstairs, and B.A. came out of the bedroom at the end of the hall and they all met up at the stairs.

"What do you think, Hannibal?" Face asked.

Hannibal put his gun away and shook his head, "Something's wrong."

"What?" Stevi wanted to know, "What was wrong about that?"

"He didn't want to go up to your bedroom," Hannibal pointed out, "He wanted to stay down here on the ground floor, right here by the door."

"So?" she asked.

"So," Hannibal said, "He was counting on getting you alone and dragging you out of this house, maybe even having some friends come in to help once he could signal them that the coast was clear."

"Who would want to do something like that?" Stevi asked.

"You never considered the possibility that Tony could be working with Woody?" Face asked her.

Stevi shook her head, "Why should I?"

"She got a point, Hannibal," B.A. said, "Sucker's been gone for over 3 years, why' he coming back for her now?"

"Every new album, every worldwide tour, she just becomes a bigger hit," Hannibal said, "It could be he finally reached a point he decided to come and take back what he believes belongs to him."

Stevi didn't take kindly to his choice of words and replied, "Hey man, I don't belong to anybody."

"And you certainly go out of your way to prove it," Face said with a hint of condescension.

"He's going to pace himself," Hannibal told the others, "He's going to wait until he's sure Stevi's alone and then he's going to come in here and try to snatch her up and haul her out."

"And what?" Face asked, "We just wait until then?"

"Or until we can figure out exactly why he wants to do it," Hannibal said, "Whichever comes first."

"Another waiting period, just great," Face grumbled to himself.

"What is the matter with me?" Stevi asked Murdock later that night when he'd escorted her back to her room and agreed to stay with her for a while, "Why do I keep winding up with these losers?"

Murdock had seated himself on the footboard of her bed and she sat on the edge of it. He reached over and patted her curled hair and said, "Not your fault, Stevi, you're young, it happens."

"If he is working with Woody then that means he's just been using me this whole time," Stevi said. She got up from the bed and started pacing back and forth around the room and told Murdock, "I thought we clicked, I thought we had this great electricity between us, you know? Energies sync, ha! I feel like such an idiot!"

"You can't think like that, Stevi," Murdock told her, "You're a great lady, the trouble is you're too nice and too trusting and the untrustworthy people of the world know who is and who isn't and they take advantage of that."

Stevi kicked the bedstead and the whole thing vibrated, Murdock included.

"You know," she said to him, "Every relationship I've ever been in has just been a disaster, there's not one of them that ever ended on a good term."

"Maybe that's 'cuz you juggle them like chainsaws," Murdock told her as he hopped off the footboard, "Now you were right, most animals and reptiles are not exclusive, but it does have its advantages, trust me, I know."

Stevi went to the window and looked out into the night, as if she was trying to see where he had gone, or trying to see if the ambush was laying in wait down below. Murdock hadn't moved from where he stood and he watched her back, waiting for the slightest movement that could give any indication to what was going through her mind.

Finally, Stevi turned around and looked at him and asked, "Murdock, will you stay with me tonight?"

Oh boy. They were getting into that area again. Ordinarily there wouldn't be any reason for him to even give the question a second thought, but this time he had to stop for a second and consider where this might be going. But, Murdock couldn't tell if this was against his better judgment or not, he finally concluded, "Sure." When Stevi turned around, he could tell he'd made the right call. Gone once again was the carefree expression on Stevi's faith, and he could see the fear and paranoia sinking in again. Up till now Stevi hadn't wanted to believe that Tony could be involved with what was going on, but it didn't look like she had much choice now.

Murdock took over watching the window while Stevi went into the bathroom to change for the night. He drew the curtains shut just as he heard the door opening and Stevi reemerged dressed in her blue floral nightgown; she looked like she'd aged 10 years in 5 minutes, but Murdock knew part of that could be credited with the simple removal of makeup. She moved skittishly over to her bed and dug her feet under the covers and slowly the rest of her body followed suit. Murdock took one final look out the window for any would be intruders, and then stepped back over to the bed. Stevi had buried herself under the covers, Murdock slipped onto the other side and stayed on top of the covers, propped his arms behind his head and watched the clock on the wall. As the night wore on, his eyelids started to get heavy and slowly went down, and then up again, and down, and up again like a set of defective window shades. Then they went down again, and stayed down this time, and he slumped back against the pillows, uncrossed his feet, and finally fell asleep. Among his final conscious thoughts for the night was he was looking forward to finishing this job so he could go home and sleep with Jean instead, it had to be better than this.

Jean opened her eyes and tried to see her surroundings despite the dark. She rubbed her eyes to clear her vision but it didn't help much. It was dark, she could feel the night breeze, she could see dim lights from out the window. It must be going on 2 o' clock in the morning, maybe later. She lay back and pressed her head against the cushioning and tried closing her eyes again. And then something occurred to her.

One of the last things she remembered was falling asleep in her car, that she had left at the studio. So why now, it was starting to dawn on her, was she in a bed? It was almost impossible to mistake the difference in the front seat of her car and the soft mattress beneath her. About any sleep she'd gotten the past few nights was not in a bed, if she slept at all it was in a chair in the living room or on the couch. It was so easy to get sick and tired of sleeping in either of those places, even though they were also manufactured for comfort, they weren't soft like this, there was no mistaking it. So how had she gotten here? She tried to think. She sure as hell didn't remember getting up any stairs, so if she was back home, then this had to be B.A.'s bed on the ground floor. Except where was the dip? There was an unmistakable dip in that bed from having to withstand the weight of a 230 pound mudsucker on a nightly basis; even now that they seldom spent the night here, that dip was in the mattress to stay. So if it wasn't B.A.'s bed, then whose was it and how had she gotten there?

Oy, she should never have laid down in the first place, it was impossible to get up, it was near impossible to wake up enough to really get a look around the place. As best as she could, she tried to get up enough to a sitting position on the bed to have a look at the room to try and figure out where the hell she even was, but that didn't work and she fell back against the mattress again. She closed her eyes and decided to try going back to sleep, she'd figure it out in the morning. That had been what she was thinking anyway, when out of nowhere she felt a hand stroking over her hair. She tried opening her eyes to see who the hell was in the room with her, but it didn't work. She felt herself sinking even deeper against the mattress as she felt a weight from the other side of it, and heard a low 'shhhh' as she felt herself starting to conk out again. Every inch of her body should've been resisting sleep and she should've been hopped up on adrenaline to find out what was going on and what potential danger she was in and she should've realized what potential danger she could be in, but she was just too tired to even try. Her eyelids had simply become too heavy to even try keeping open.