As a person so guarded and protective of his privacy, Adrian had taken to getting up quite early and sneaking in a swim even before Natalie got up. He'd been doing it since just after they got together, and he thought he was so stealthy. Adrian didn't even mean to be keeping secrets from Natalie; it was just his way for so long.

Initially, he had no idea Natalie knew about his early morning activity and was very proud of him. She would do nothing to let him know that she knew or do anything to discourage him. Instead, she let him go on and do as he pleased. Meanwhile, she got a little extra sleep.

Adrian took to swimming laps. He found it helped him think in much the same way pacing did. He found solutions to cases in the pool and problems in his life, not that he had many of those these days, but nevertheless, he found swimming to be a good exercise for body and mind. Underwater was quiet, private, and insulated. His swimming had greatly improved from the days of his "correspondence course" lessons and the day he jumped into the San Francisco Bay to escape from Dr. Jay Bennet, now convicted murderer, or the day he'd jumped off the pier when Leland had "shot" him. About two weeks ago, he had a sneaking suspicion that Natalie had figured it out, but was allowing him his privacy, another one of her attributes that he found appealing and comforting. She allowed him his space and privacy when he needed it, and she listened when he felt ready to talk. The cloud they were floating on seemed like it would never dissipate, and he was as happy as he'd ever been.

On this sunny early October day in Northern California, Adrian got out of the pool, toweled himself off scrupulously to be sure he didn't drip, then pulled on a t-shirt before he entered the house. Indian summer was in full effect, and they had no plan to close the pool any time soon. When he walked into the kitchen to start the coffee maker, there was a knock at the door. He still had the towel around his neck and his bathing trunks on, his feet were bare, but he was in his own home. He shrugged in moderate discomfort but went to the door anyway.

To his surprise, Julie stood on the porch.

"Hi," she sobbed and threw herself at him. He took her into his arms with the surprise and fatherly worry that immediately came to mind when he saw her face, blurry with tears and anguish.

"Julie! What is it? Come inside!" He escorted her to the couch, and as they sat, she was still crying, and he handed her a pile of tissues. "Julie, please. You're making me nervous. What is it?"

"Jason. He's been arrested."

"What?"

"They think he murdered his roommate. I know he didn't do it."

"How do you know?"

"Because he was with me. He was with me all weekend. He hasn't been near his apartment all weekend." Julie slapped her hands over her mouth, realizing what she'd just admitted to Adrian. Adrian narrowed his eyes when he, too, realized what she'd just confessed.

"Julie, we'll worry about that issue another time, we have to get your mother up, and we have to get showered, dressed, and get to the station."

"Okay."

"You get your mother up. I have to take care of stuff in the kitchen." They separated, and he realized his mistake when he hit the off switch on the coffee maker. At that moment, Julie looked into what was, purportedly, her mother's bedroom, but it was empty, bed made, and looking remarkably untouched. Now it was Julie, who, with narrowed eyes, turned to look at the closed door across the hall when Adrian came skidding down the hall like a cartoon character and came to a stop between Julie and the door.

"Julie, we wanted to tell you something the day Kyle and Molly announced their engagement, but we didn't get a chance because we didn't want to take anything away from their excitement."

"Really?" Julie said with the first smile he'd seen from her that morning.

Suddenly the door opened behind Adrian. Natalie, barely awake, attractively tousled from sleep, and wearing sexy purple lingerie, said, "Adrian, who are you talking to at this hour?"

"Mom!" Julie said, shocked at her mother's seductive appearance.

"Julie!" Now wide awake, realizing what she was wearing, where she was, and what it implied, Natalie stuttered, "Julie…Honey? Are you okay?"

"No, not at all. But this is a happy surprise." Julie, despite her situation, smirked at her mother. "Are you alright?"

"Yes! No!" With that, Natalie slammed the bedroom door and searched for her robe. She emerged several minutes later, completely covered yet still flustered.

"Julie, what's going on?" Natalie asked as Adrian ran for the bedroom and the shower.

Julie explained the whole story to her mother, just as she had to Adrian, but she didn't get the same stare from her mother, who had suspected for a little while that her daughter was intimately involved with her boyfriend and wasn't too worried. Julie was a level-headed young woman.

"Okay, honey. Adrian will figure out what's going on. Don't worry. Why don't we eat something? They won't let us see Jason until at least ten."

"Mom. Are you just going to gloss over the whole you and Adrian are … I don't know what to call this? Sleeping together? A couple? What's happening?"

"Well, after the party in July, we were both a little drunk. We were both pretty uninhibited. We talked about being alone after a busy, noisy day and how we both liked the quiet, but not the silence of being alone like we'd had for all those sad and lonely years before. I gathered all my courage and told him he wasn't alone anymore, and he wouldn't be ever again, and he smiled, leaned down, and kissed me. That was it. We kissed again, and we confessed that we loved each other."

Julie sighed. "That's the sweetest, most romantic thing I've ever heard. I'm so happy that you guys finally figured it out."

"What do you mean?"

"Come on, mom. You two have been in love with each other for years! You finally figured it out! This is amazing! It's great!" Then Julie promptly started crying again.

"Oh no, Julie. I'm sorry. Are you angry at us?"

"No! No, I'm so happy for you. I love you both. I've wanted Adrian to be my dad since I was eleven, Mom! No. It's just that I love Jason. I can't stand to be away from him. We have to help him. You and Adrian have to help him!"

"We'll do everything we can, I promise you, sweetheart." Natalie's heart swelled with the thought of Adrian being Julie's dad. Was that their future? Natalie would have to feel Adrian out, but first, they had serious business to attend to; their family was in trouble.

A while later, as Natalie was still soothing Julie, Adrian came in, showered, and dressed. He traded places with Natalie on the couch. He watched Natalie hurry away to get ready, but their eyes met as she turned back to look at them. The worry in her eyes matched the worry in his mind. Why would they arrest Jason if they had a witness who said he never left her side?

𝕸ɳ𝕸ɳ𝕸ɳ𝕸ɳ𝕸ɳ𝕸ɳ𝕸ɳ𝕸ɳ𝕸ɳ𝕸ɳ𝕸ɳ𝕸ɳ𝕸ɳ𝕸ɳ𝕸ɳ𝕸ɳ𝕸ɳ𝕸ɳ𝕸ɳ

The car ride was silent except for the soothing sounds of "Yacht Rock" emanating from the satellite radio in Natalie's well-appointed car. They arrived at the station in due course and hurried to Leland's office. Leland, having anticipated their arrival, stood outside his office door waiting. He put his finger to his lips in a gesture identical to the one Adrian had made when they'd gone to him about the bugs. He motioned for them to follow him, so they did. Into the bowels of the San Francisco police department. Into the deepest part of the records' archives. Where they found a circle of folding chairs and Randy sitting with…Jason.

Julie flew into his arms and began weeping again. Jason patiently held her and calmly told her everything was okay as he stroked her hair and back and held her tightly.

"Okay, what's going on, Leland?" Natalie asked with a confused look at him and then back at Adrian.

"Come sit."

"Okay." Natalie and Adrian took chairs beside each other, Leland sat beside Randy, and Julie sat beside Jason and clutched his hand in hers.

Once they were all settled, Leland began a tale that was too unreal to be believed. "...So, once you guys moved in together, I started my own little investigation. For a while, it went nowhere. Then you came to me with the bugging thing, and I thought, 'Who would be looking at them? And why?' First, I made a list of people who would really hate you enough to be blackmailing you for something."

Adrian and Natalie looked at each other with surprise. "No one is blackmailing us, per se, Leland," Adrian said.

"Well, I whittled down the list little by little, and then I remembered something. You said you weren't in danger but couldn't explain what was happening. So there were evidently rules to whatever you were involved in, starting in mid-March. So I did some more whittling to my list and realized that Dale the Whale had died a few weeks before starting your new living arrangements."

Natalie and Adrian stared at him in shock. Then they each remembered to school their features into a neutral expression of passive listening.

Leland caught the shock, inwardly smirked, and continued, "So with the exorbitant amount of money you suddenly have and are spending, the cruelty of making you live in your old house, which he had filled with his porn collection at some point, and forcing you to change your entire lives, he must have used a threat against people you love. Am I close?"

The two just nodded at him. Silent and surprised.

"See? I can figure out a few things even without your help, Monk! But now that Jason was brought in for murder, one it was clear he did not, could not have committed… I got more curious. Was someone trying to mess with you emotionally through Julie? Did he leave behind instructions for his underlings to keep torturing you? To somehow find ways to hurt you, to make you break a rule, or forfeit your ability to win this game he's playing with you? So I will keep Jason for a while; he's agreed to it and will be perfectly safe. No roommates, a cushy 'cell' here, no transfers. We'll figure out who else is out there, Monk, so maybe we can free you of the person or people bugging your house and threatening you."

"It's not quite a threat, Leland," Monk sighed.

"Okay, well, whatever the hell it is that you can't tell us about."

"Where do we go from here?" Natalie asked.

"Well, you two go on about your business as if you were unaware that I just told you I knew any of this. Randy and I will take care of Jason. Julie, you go to your classes."

Julie started to protest, but Randy cut her off, "Come on, Julie, I'll drive you."

"My car is at their house." Julie pointed at Adrian and Natalie.

"Fine. Let's go."

The four investigators averted their eyes as Julie and Jason kissed goodbye as if they'd never see each other again. Monk tapped his foot impatiently. Natalie put a hand on his back to calm him down. Randy practically had to drag Julie away.

Randy said, "You can come back later on, Julie."

"Alright," she responded dejectedly as she walked backward out of the room, her eyes never leaving Jason's until she was out the door.

Natalie walked over to Jason, "I'm so sorry you're caught up in the mess we're involved in, which we can't tell you about… but we're grateful you're willing to play along. It will make sense eventually."

Natalie looked at her watch and remembered the appointment she and Adrian had an hour from then. She looked over at him and said, "we need to go. We have an appointment in about an hour."

"I almost forgot," Monk replied, looking toward the ceiling again and visualizing his desk appointment calendar. Then, finally, he focused and saw the appointment at noon circled in red.

"That's why you keep me around!" Natalie replied.

"Not the only reason," he smiled into her eyes and leaned towards her. He nearly kissed her before he remembered himself and where they were. He quickly pulled back. But not soon enough. Leland caught the unusually affectionate exchange between the two and raised his eyebrows with interest. The pair continued to smile at each other for a few moments more, and in that few seconds, Leland realized something had changed between them. Something more than their addresses and their disposable income.

𝕸ɳ𝕸ɳ𝕸ɳ𝕸ɳ𝕸ɳ𝕸ɳ𝕸ɳ𝕸ɳ𝕸ɳ𝕸ɳ𝕸ɳ𝕸ɳ𝕸ɳ𝕸ɳ𝕸ɳ𝕸ɳ𝕸ɳ𝕸ɳ𝕸ɳ

Natalie drove them to where their noon meeting was to take place. It was a gigantic old building in an old section of a San Francisco suburb. Not a bad neighborhood, but the building had definitely seen better days. Unfortunately, it was in terrible shape, and the price reflected that. Nevertheless, Adrian and Natalie were going to buy the place, fix it up, and turn it into a safe haven for battered women and their children. With the first check from the sale of the first half of Biederbeck's awful "collection," they had formed a 503c nonprofit foundation. They'd gotten some help from a lawyer Natalie's parents knew who regularly dealt with things to do with charities and nonprofits. They also had him check with the Walnut Creek authorities to ensure the zoning issues and permits wouldn't be an issue. The house was far enough away from private homes and close to the small town. It had been a bed and breakfast a long, long time ago, but the owners had fallen on hard times in the very early nineties, went bankrupt, and simply abandoned it. The building itself had stood since just after the great earthquake of 1906. It was well-built and had withstood the tests of time and mother nature. It just needed some TLC and money lavished on it. It was a perfect project for Adrian and Natalie now that their own home was almost complete.

Natalie had come up with the name for the foundation in the middle of the night the month before and had woken Adrian in an excited flurry of words. The T.E.A.M. Foundation for Women and Children. They honored Trudy this way, using her and Adrian's initials. They used the money Adrian and Trudy lost in the libel case but now regained by Natalie and Adrian to do good. It was less obviously connected to Adrian and Natalie in the present. Adrian thought it was impossibly sweet and selfless, again, of Natalie. But she argued it was a pragmatic and obvious choice after what Dale had done to Trudy…and, by extension, him. They were just getting him back in the best way possible by doing good with the money they got for his disgusting collection. By turning Dale's vices into good deeds, which the Whale would have found tragic and nonsensical, Adrian, in particular, liked it even more.

They were meeting the broker first, and then a half hour later, the contractor who had done the work on their house would be coming. He would inspect the building before they put down the six-figure deposit, and Natalie wanted to discuss the first steps in renovation and costs. In addition, she was hoping he might know some subcontractors who would donate either time or materials to their project since it was a nonprofit.

The three spent another two hours carefully going through the building until they were all satisfied with what needed to be done, what could be done, and how long it would take. Finally, the contractor bid them farewell with promises of written estimates and information on the subcontractors within the next week. With the man's confident projections on costs and time estimates, they felt they could proceed with the purchase. Natalie called the realtor with their offer as soon as they were alone.

Then she called Julie to reassure her of Jason's well-being, as Adrian had gotten off the phone with Leland moments before. This mysterious situation was not as frightening as it was strange. Neither Natalie nor Monk could figure out who would be interested in seeing Julie's boyfriend jailed when it was apparent he hadn't done what he was being accused of. There had been too many witnesses that placed him in locations far from the scene of the crime. Julie, first and foremost. Then their other friends with whom they'd played tennis earlier on the day of the murder. The other couple had been with them for lunch, and through the showering and changing, Jason had never been alone long enough to slip away. Monk's assumption was that whoever the perpetrator was, didn't count on Julie and Jason's busy social lives.

They pulled into the driveway, tired, happy, confused, and upset. It was a weird conglomeration of emotions, but they were laid out in front of them, raw and bare. They each undid their seatbelt and then opened their doors. Adrian led the way up their front steps, and as he got his keys, he heard Natalie say, "Oh!" and then he heard a thud. As he turned to see her being carried away, he felt a hand over his mouth and smelled chloroform. That was all he sensed for a very long time.

𝕸ɳ𝕸ɳ𝕸ɳ𝕸ɳ𝕸ɳ𝕸ɳ𝕸ɳ𝕸ɳ𝕸ɳ𝕸ɳ𝕸ɳ𝕸ɳ𝕸ɳ𝕸ɳ𝕸ɳ𝕸ɳ𝕸ɳ𝕸ɳ𝕸ɳ

Angry, they hadn't thought of it; the black hooded figure slipped into their car with photos of the incident on a digital card and headed for police headquarters. This wasn't the plan. This wasn't even close to the promise that had been made or the bargain that had been struck. They were supposed to kidnap Natalie Teeger, not Adrian Monk! No one was going to take Adrian Monk from them, no one.