Chapter 1: The Coffee Pot That Started It All

IMBSA: Remember, I don't own anything! Again, be nice when you review. I definitly(sp?) got them OOC. But they're supposed to be that way. Oh yeah, kudos to whoever can guess who I made Michael like! If you want me to continue, just encourage me.

It seemed to be such an ordinary day; the sun rose in the east and the birds sang. A happy breeze blew through the trees. Who would have thought that one innocent, empty coffee pot could be the root of all evil in the workplace? The team had just wrapped up a difficult case that called for working 12 hours straight. Needless to say, patience was limited to the sane few. And oh, what few she was.

Amon turned the coffee pot all the way upside-down, attempting to pour his seventh cup of coffee. Two drops dribbled forlornly into his smiley-face cup. Hand and pot paused above the rim of his unusually (for him at least) cheerful mug, Amon looked ready to kill.

"All right," he began in a deceptively calm voice, "WHO DRANK THE LAST CUP OF COFFEE?!" He ended, breaking the morning stupor with a vengeance. "Dojima, wasn't it you?" He asked, like a man desperate for his morning fix of caffeine.

Alarmed, Dojima answered, looking quite like a deer in the headlights, "ME?! I'm not the Java Junkie around here. I only had two cups!" Amon looked around the room at all the possible perpetrators. His eye caught Sakaki sitting dazed on the couch staring at the box of doughnuts on the desk a few feet away from him, holding on to a cup in a limp grip.

"How 'bout you, Sack of Shit?" Amon asked accusingly.

Bullied out of his blissful daze dreaming of some sweet jelly doughnuts, Sakaki replied angrily, "Hey, who are you calling a Sack of----"

"Um, Amon," Robin interrupted, slightly tentatively.

"WHAT?!" Amon roared, angry that she had broken into the "adult's" argument.

"You...drank...the last...cup of coffee...."Robin finished, voice growing softer with every word.

"No I didn't," Amon replied childishly. "I don't know who did, but it certainly wasn't me!"

"Simmer, simmer, now," Karasuma murmured placatingly. "I was the last person to have poured coffee." Amon's eyes glowed murderously, but before he could move, Karasuma continued. "I poured two cups: one for myself..." she paused. "And the last cup for you...Amon." She said the last part emphatically.

Sakaki laughed sarcastically and stuck his hand into the doughnut box, thinking that one of the gooey confections made almost entirely of sugar would take his mind off Amon's rage. His hand felt around, but to no avail. Merely humble pieces of sugar-coated wax paper crumpled under his touch. Looking inside, his face fell.

"Who ate all the damn doughnuts?" Sakaki asked good-naturedly (for the circumstances, at least), looking around. "Michael Mullet-Head, wasn't it you?" Dojima looked down, wiping the powder from her face and licking her fingers as inconspicuously as she could.

"Excuse me? What are you talking about?" Michael asked, looking up from his Never Winter Nights Game.

"You know," Sakaki replied, slightly difficultly as his tongue was licking the sad remains of the sugar from the wax paper. "Alsh da doughnuts." He gave up that line of attack when Michael got some kind of Sword of Invincibility (or something like that) and had switched his attention back to the game. "Karasuma, go get another dozen of the doughnuts. In fact, make that two."

"Do I look like your personal caterer?" The normally calm and collected woman replied. "Does it even look like I cook? Get off your lazy ass and get some yourself. You have means of transportation, don't you?"

"What's stopping you from going?" Sakaki asked, searching for a discarded sugar packet.

Karasuma stood up, slammed her clenched fist on the table and screamed, "I WENT LAST TIME!" A sheet of wax paper, disturbed by her fist floated slowly to the ground. Sakaki blinked continuously, shocked.

"Must be SOMEbody's time of the month," he muttered. WHAM! All collectively winced as Karasuma's open palm crashed into the side of Sakaki's head.

"My menstrual cycles are none of your concern," she shot back coldly. Through all of this angry exchange, no one had made Amon another pot of coffee.

"Will somebody please make another pot of coffee?" He asked, now pleading. He continued ranting on. "I mean, I'm always the one who's the first to get here, with the possible exception of Michael, 'cause he lives here and is under fucking house arrest, and that's really not my problem! My problem is that no one's made another pot of coffee! I poured out TWO DROPS and THAT JUST ISN'T ENOUGH COFFEE FOR ME!!!" He continued his tirade, and making absolutely no sense at all, waving the empty coffee pot to punctuate some remarks. Robin stood, walked calmly over, and tried to take the coffee pot away before he hurt somebody, namely himself. Unfortunately, her brave attempts ended unsuccessfully. CRASH!!! As Amon held the plastic handle, everyone stared sullenly at the broken pieces of glass on the floor. In an effort to avoid Robin's hands, Amon had swung the coffee pot toward Michael's computer. Both glass objects shattered on contact with a few electrical sparks shooting from the back of the computer.

Michael blinked a few times before shouting, "ELIZABETH!!!!!!!!!" Everyone looked at each other in confusion. Michael, in tears, hugged what was left of his monitor. "Elizabeth, what has he done to you?" He lamented passionately, rubbing his cheek against the plastic covering as smoke rose from his beloved computer. "Me and you, we were together from the start...." He sobbed. "You've helped me on so many cases...endlessly searching those databases for me...." His voice took on a Sméagol/Gollum-like note. "But they wouldn't understand would they?" His voice returned to being tearful. "And now you're gone." His voice going where a straight man's voice should never go, he lovingly embraced the computer one last time. He took off his glasses and wiped the tears from the lenses on his T-shirt. Everyone was quiet, as though sensing Michael's need to mourn. Michael stood up dejectedly, looking down at the sad remains of his Elizabeth. He couldn't take it anymore and flung himself down on the floor in front of his computer, sobbing unrestrainedly.

"Dude, we really need a vacation," Dojima muttered as Michael continued his wailing. "A looooooooooooooooooong vacation."