Under The Influence

"Why are you talking about this?" Nicole asked Antonio. He had been asking vague questions about their relationship that morning. She answered his questions as best she could and didn't give his curiosities much thought until they were headed to their desks. She stopped him in the hall. "Is there something you want to tell me?"

"We've been so unpredictable in our relationships and I want to know if we're serious, or is this another fling?"

If they had been alone she would have yelled, but since they were in the company of people they had to see daily she kept her voice down, gritted her teeth, and spat out "fling?"

Antonio wished he had used a better choice of words. "I didn't mean it like that."

"I don't want to hear it Antonio." Nicole left the man she loved—and at that moment hated—in the hall.

xxxx

Nicole had cooled down before she got to her desk. Jess was at hers too, in the same clothes she was wearing the night before. Nicole didn't say anything to her because she was on the phone and looked as mad as Nicole felt moment before.

"Right now I don't care about government security!" Jess yelled into the phone. "I am going to have a baby. Do you not understand? The child I am carrying is his. Colin McNeil is going to become a father this year!"

She was unable to make the D.O.J. see things her way and hung up the phone.

"They still won't tell you where he is, huh?"

"Where do they draw the line? If letting someone know they are about to become a father isn't enough to pull him, what is?"

"Were you here all night?"

"I had to finish my expense report and then I had to call those idiots. I have an ultra sound appointment and then I am going home."

"I'll drive you."

"What for?"

"I have to get out of this building."

xxxx

"Tell me you're kidding," Pollock said, but he really hoped the man in his office was not.

That man had just informed him that the director of the F.B.I. was retiring and that he was going to replace him.

"It's no joke, John. Congratulations. But you need to keep this under your hat because if you breathe a word of this to anyone it will spread like wild fire. All the S.A.I.C.s will know one of them will be replacing you and we won't be able to pick the best candidate because none of them will be acting as they really are when we watch them."

"I won't say a word," Pollock tried to play it cool and he did, but inside he was thrilled.

"Good. The Director will be handing in his resignation in early September."

xxxx

The nurse took Jess's blood pressure and left them to wait for the doctor. Jess asked Nicole why she had come with her.

"I had a fight with Antonio. Well, it wasn't so much a fight as him being an ass. He called us a fling."

"That doesn't sound like him. What started it?"

"He kept asking questions like, do I think we will ever get married. I said I didn't know. I asked him why he was asking, and his exact words were 'I want to know if we're serious or is this another fling?'. I could have killed him."

"You know he's had a difficult few months. I'm sure he wasn't trying to hurt you. He's probably looking for a firm foundation. Something he knows he can depend on."

"He knows I love him."

"Does he?"

"Jess."

"When was the last time you told him you loved him?"

She had to think about that. "I think it was some time in January. Damn, you're right."

"What are you going to do?"

"You seem to be on a roll, tell me."

"You need to stop hiding your feelings about him. Let go of the front and tell him how you really feel. Make sure he knows you're committed to him…if you really are."

xxxx

The physician came in. She introduced herself to Jess and Nicole with a last name that was impossible to pronounce. "That's okay. Just call me by my first name.. Mira. If I can tell, are you going to want to know if it's a boy or a girl?"

"Definitely. I've never understood why some people don't."

"Some women want to be surprised."

"It's too impractical for me. Almost everything I will have to buy I can't until I know if it's a boy or a girl; clothes, blankets, the crib lining. I'd go nuts if I didn't know."

Mira chuckled. "You don't have to worry about that. You're having a little boy."

Half way through the ultrasound Mira asked Jess when she thought she conceived the baby.

"Around the first of January," Jess answered.

"It was definitely January, but it would have been around the sixteenth or seventeenth, not the first."

Jess grabbed Mira's arm so hard the doctor almost pulled away. "How do you know? How do you know it wasn't the first?"

"The fetus is less developed than it would be if it were conceived two weeks earlier."

She let go of the doctor's arm. "Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"Jess, what difference does it make?" Nicole asked.

Without saying another word, Jess hopped off the exam table and left.

"Jess, would you talk to me?" Nicole asked for the third time as they walked to the car.

"Colin might not be the father of this baby."

xxxx

Nothing was said until they got to Jess's apartment. That was when that Nicole tried to pretend that she could relate with what Jess's feelings were.

"Look, Jess, I know you're probably ashamed that you don't know who the father is, but it happens. I'm sure there's a way we can track him down."

"That is the last thing I need right now."

"Am I missing something?"

"…The day after Colin left I went out alone. I met this guy. We talked. We drank. The next morning I woke up in some crappy motel. He wasn't there."

"Like I said, it happens."

"I didn't have that much to drink, Nicole. It wasn't enough to make me blackout."

"Are you saying you think he drugged you?"

"I don't know. He might have."

There was silence between them. An uncomfortable silence. Nicole was desperate for the right words to say, but she drew a blank. After the initial shock, sadness, and loss for words, the only feeling left was anger.

"Did you get that bastard's name?"

"James Carroll...I don't want anyone to know about this okay?"

"He belongs in jail."

"I know. But I don't want to be the one behind it. I have enough to think about already. Besides, I'm not completely sure he used Rohypnol."

"Were you with Colin the day he left?"

"Yes."

"Good. There's a chance the baby could be his…You need to rest. I'll talk to you later."

xxxx

There was a new assignment waiting for Nicole when she got back to the field office. Antonio told her about it with his eyes on the computer the entire time.

"The Virginia office has had this one for a few days and they're hoping we will have more luck." He gave her the file. "Farrah Nielson. Twenty-four years old. She's a dog walker. She was last seen walking Donald and Wendi Groban's terrier. When Wendi came home at nine o'clock she found the dog wondering the halls."

"Is there surveillance in the building?"

"No. Which is odd because they live in a pretty top notch building. All they have is a door man who was on a break between eight-thirty and eight-fifty."

Nicole said nothing and Antonio thought she was giving him the cold shoulder. "Nicole, I'm sorry about this morning."

"Forget about it."

"..What?"

"I have bigger things to think about. You're off the hook."

Antonio didn't look a gift horse in the mouth for a second. He didn't care why he was getting off so easily and he didn't try to find out why.

"I'm going to go look at the board."

xxxx

"Scott, Cortez," Pollock greeted them in a manner that was unlike him—friendly. "You've heard about Farrah Nielson, I presume."

"Just moments ago, Sir," Nicole said.

"Where is your partner?"

"Home resting."

"Nap time is over. The only reason Virginia tossed this one our way is because we have something they don't. A psychic."

xxxx

When she came in Antonio filled Jess in on everything that he knew.

"Boy am I glad to see you," Nicole said to Jess when she got back. "I got nothing from Farrah's clients. And all the doorman was able to tell me is that just before eight-thirty Farrah left with the dog and at nine Mrs. Groban came home. She went up to the sixth floor, and came back down five minutes later asking why the dog was alone."

"Okay let's look at this over again," Antonio said picking up a marker to write on the board..

"Maybe she was mugged," Jess said. "Her assailant went too far, killed her, and brought the dog back."

"But how would he know where to bring the dog? He could have been following her for a while before he attacked. Farrah may have had a stalker." After saying that, Nicole saw her comment uneased Antonio.

While Antonio wrote on the board Jess came out of a vision.

"I saw a boy. He was two, maybe three years old. He was in a garden with blue roses around him." She tried to remember any other details. "That was it."

Antonio put the marker down and went over to an unoccupied computer. "There is a motel called the Garden Inn right here in D.C."

xxxx

At the motel Antonio searched the perimeter. Nicole talked to the clerks. Jess talked to some of the maids and looked around the rooms that were empty.

All of the rooms had wallpaper with blue roses on them. They looked so familiar to her, but she didn't know why. She thought maybe she'd seen the room in her vision and just forgot.

Antonio and Nicole came in one of the unoccupied rooms. "None of the clerks have seen her," Nicole said. "Did any of the maids?"

"No," Jess told them. "But this is definitely the right place. I know I've seen these rooms before."

"In your vision?" Antonio asked.

"Probably. I can't remember. I think if I had seen it in the vision I would know." It was that moment when she realized that the rooms looked familiar because she'd been in one of them before.

"What?" Nicole said.

"Antonio, we'll meet you back at the car," Jess said.

Antonio took the hint, but he didn't know why she wanted him to leave.

"Nicole, this is it," Jess said. "This is the motel I told you I woke up in two months ago." But Jess was more concerned with the fact that her vision had taken them further away from finding the victim than anything else. "My vision had nothing to do with Farrah."

xxxx

When they got back to the field office Jess went home to gather her thoughts.

"Why can't you tell me what's going on?" Antonio asked Nicole as the elevator doors closed.

"There's nothing to tell. Jess needs to rest. Her visions are a little off. That's all."

"Pollock is just going to call her in as soon as he finds out."

"He's not going to find out. He's also not going to find out we need to go back to the drawing board with Farrah's case. I am going to talk to Wendi Groban again."

xxxx

"I guess we have a dog walker for the same reason any one else does," Wendi told Nicole. "Our hours are insane and we never know when we will be home."

"The last day you saw Farrah, did she seem at all different to you?"

Wendi's face looked like she just realized something that she couldn't believe she had forgotten. "She said something about a guy that was following her. Those weren't her exact words, but she did say she had run into him at the dog park several times and that it seemed to be more than coincidental. He didn't have a dog either."

"Did she tell you what he looked like?"

"No. She wasn't sure he was stalking her. She said she might have been being paranoid."

"Given the fact that she's no where to be found, I doubt it. Thank you. You've been very helpful."

xxxx

"Cortez," Antonio answered the phone on his desk.

"Wendi Groban said Farrah suspected she was being stalked the day she disappeared."

"Description?"

"I've got something better. I had C.S.U. retrace their steps and they found blood in the park where Farrah walks the dogs. They also found a piece of gum that belongs to a sex offender. Harley Kramer. I'm sending you his address. Meet me there. "

xxxx

Nicole explained Harley's M.O. to Antonio as they walked up the walkway to Harley's door. "He was a park cleaner until he met his first victim...a dog walker. He stalked her and abducted her. He held her for three weeks before shooting her and leaving her for dead. Unfortunately for him she lived and testified against him. After a thirty year sentence he was released two weeks ago."

Antonio banged on the door. "Harley Kramer, F.B.I."

They heard a scream and kicked in the door. Antonio tackled their perp and Nicole found Farrah locked in a closet in one of the bedrooms. She was hurt, but would live.

xxxx

The long day was over. Reports were written and every one was free to leave. On her way back to Antonio's place Nicole stopped by Jess's to check in with her.

"Did you find her?" Jess was anxious to know.

"Alive and well."

"I can't believe I didn't remember I was at that motel."

"You were coming off Rohypnol."

"Farrah almost died because of that. I am going to have to be more careful about my visions."

"I thought you might want to talk," Nicole said.

"Do I look like someone who needs to talk?"

"You look fine. That's what worries me. You're handling this all too well."

"It's not the end of the world. I'm not going to crawl into bed and hide for the rest of my life."

"Good. I'm glad you want to deal with it. I just think you…aren't."

"Why? Because I'm not crying? Because I want to believe this is Colin's baby, so I don't have to think about whether or not I can handle raising a rapist's baby?"

"That's better. You might have been unconscious, but you were still raped, Jess. Be angry."

"I am. If that's what really happened. I don't know for sure. But if it did, it happened, it's over, I'm moving on."

"All right. What are you going to tell Colin?"

"Nothing."

"You can't just let him believe this is his child. He has a right to know it might not be."

"When he left we were broken up. He's not coming back to me, so he never has to know anything about the baby. When he gets through with his assignment and his boss tells him I called I'll just tell him I thought I was pregnant and I wasn't."

"Jess, I know you. You're an honest person. You're are not going to be able to do this."

"What I won't be able to do is deal with raising this kid if I know James is his father. I need you to just forget about what I told you might have happened and pretend with me that Colin is the only person who could possibly father this baby."

Against her wishes—and better judgment—Nicole agreed to Jess's request.

xxxx

"How is Jess?" Antonio asked Nicole when she came back to his place.

"Fine." On her way there Nicole remembered what Jess told her at the doctor's office, about being more honest with Antonio to help him feel more confident in their relationship. "I have to talk to you about something."

"Go ahead."

"About what you said this morning…I shouldn't have just let it go."

Antonio braced himself.

"I'm sorry."

"Huh?" he wasn't expecting that.

"You weren't totally out of line with what you said. I admit we have had our problems and I can also admit most…if not all of them were my fault. I know I don't say this enough, but I do love you."

"I love you too."

"And I do want this to work out."

"So do I. Are we okay now?"

"We're great."

xxxx

The next months didn't go as Jess had hoped. She couldn't get James—what she remembered about him and what she suspected happened between them—out of her head. She kept trying to push the idea that the child she was carrying might not be Colin's out of her mind, but the more she tried not to think about it, the more she did. It wasn't long before she tried to forget about the baby all together. She stopped going to the ultrasound appointments. She threw herself into her work until she couldn't work anymore. When she told Pollock about the pregnancy he put her on desk duty until her seventh month rolled around. She then had to stay home until after the baby was born.