I know that it has been a long time since my last installment of this fic. My plans for this have been percolating while I worked on other things. But it was a bit challenging to get myself back into the moment of this piece, now that so much has changed since the episode that it is based around. Still, I am committed to bringing it to a close eventually. And this chapter was fun to write. I worry that my logistics won't make sense, and probably any of you can come up with "why didn't she/he/they..." that would have resolved the complications better than what I have come up with. I can only say, the characters were tired, emotional, and stressed. Or maybe that was me. And of course, there is still more to be revealed with regard to the subplots that I have devised, so stay tuned.

My apologies to the creators, owners, and especially the writers of these characters who regularly develop plot lines that make way more sense than mine likely does. Plot has never been my strong suit. So I wouldn't dare to try to make money from fanfics like this one. The results would probably be embarrassing. Let's just say, I'd never quit my day job.

Chapter 6

Her awakening that morning was even more muzzy and disoriented than usual. Her phone was beeping. At least, it sounded like her phone. She was in a dark and unfamiliar room. Some distant corner of her mind was firmly insisting that she get up immediately. She ignored it. Without caffeine or adrenaline, how could she be expected to drag herself out of bed at what her body clearly knew to be way too early in the morning?

The nagging noise of her phone alarm kept her from drifting back to sleep. It was the sound she chose when she had to bully herself into submission. Knew she wouldn't want to wake up. Knew she had to, anyway. It was shrill, and annoying, and persistent. So of course she started groping about in hopes of making it shut up. Her arm found the edge of the narrow cot where she had apparently been sleeping for some time. Her explorations revealed that the phone was not on the small stand next to the bed. Not on the floor beside the bed. Not within easy reach underneath the bed.

Rather than mustering the energy for a more vigorous search, Teresa fumed at her earlier, wakeful self. If it was so important to get up this early, shouldn't she be sleeping at home, with her familiar radio alarm? This was clearly not home. Her bed was bigger. It wasn't Marcus' home either. His bed was bigger yet.

From another corner of her mind, the cop instincts stirred slightly. Surely it was not a good sign that she had been asleep in a place that she did not recognize? There were no windows and it was pitch black. Which meant this was not a hotel, as if the uncomfortable mattress on the cot were not evidence enough for that. What if I was kidnapped, drugged, locked away somewhere?

She took a brief self-inventory. She detected no injuries, no aches and pains that could not be attributed to the bed. Even her general wooziness and lethargy felt more like her typical early a.m. grogginess than some mind-altering substance. Don't be so paranoid, she told herself. There's bound to be some good reason why I'm here. Which I'll certainly figure out. After a little more rest.

But evidently, Teresa was of two minds at this moment. In the absence of someone else to be crabby at, they aimed their irritation at each other. Herself. Whatever.

Even if I'm not worried about myself, others might be worried. Don't I have work today?

No. It's Saturday, and I have the day off.

Am I sure of that?

Yes. I was out with Marcus last night. We were making a night of it. We were planning to sleep in this morning because we could.

While the memories were hazy, on this point she was quite clear. She vaguely recalled a movie that she had barely watched, in part because it had been a long tiring week, and also because she was distracted by the dilemma of whether to take Marcus' offer to go with him to Washington DC. The images were dreamlike, disconnected. The darkened theatre, with its bright screen. Nodding off repeatedly. Talking with Marcus after the movie let out. A phone call.

Was it about work? She asked herself?

No...well, not exactly...

It was Jane.

She groaned and cursed to herself. She refused to spend any more of her off-hours thinking about Jane. Not when she didn't have to. I am not working. It is my day off. And Jane has no use for me other than work. She ignored the slight bitterness in her mental tone. In her more-than-half-asleep state, it seemed perfectly reasonable to resent Jane for seeing her as a colleague, and also to be irritated at him for intruding on her personal thoughts.

But a quaver of worry in the back of her mind asserted itself. Something was very wrong. Jane was upset. And it had to do with her. No, not quite. It was more about a death. His family? No...

Between her internal dialogue, caffeine withdrawal, and the continuing alarm, her head was now splitting. She buried her head under the pillow, trying to drown out at least one of the three.

Where was Marcus? She had another memory of him tucking her in last night, kissing her passionately, asking if she'd like him to stay a bit longer for... company. But while there was a certain intrigue to the idea... it seemed slightly naughty, although looking back at it in her sleep deprived state, she couldn't quite say why... she had declined. Feeling more than a little bit guilty at his disappointment. She had asked him to meet her here, after all. He had brought her a change of clothes and some necessary toiletries. Had promised to have... someone... check in on her. The face of a mutual acquaintance, a young woman that she couldn't immediately place, looking very nervous, swam behind her eyelids. Had this been a dream, perhaps?

No. She recognized the disjointed nature of her memories as a familiar response that sometimes attended the trauma of her work. Her mind protecting her from things that were too painful to deal with right away. Usually, she would go home to work through events this stressful. But this time, someone else needed her. He would never admit it, but she wanted to be on hand at a moment's notice, just in case...

She heard a door open, and then the click of a light switch. Instinctively, she squeezed her eyes shut even tighter and cringed her body into a fetal ball. But she couldn't shut out the voice that addressed her calmly, firmly, with a hint of wry amusement. "Good morning, Lisbon. Care for some coffee?"

Dennis Abbott's voice.

She quashed the irrational urge to stay silent and hidden, hoping that he would go away. Maybe this was all a bad dream.

Peeking around the edge of the pillow, blinking blearily at the sudden brightness, she was finally able to focus on the unmistakeable form of her boss, smiling benignly behind a cup of steaming coffee. She felt at once gratified and mortified when he extended it to her. She wondered if it would be considered insubordination to take the drink and retreat under the covers without answering him. Could it be done without displaying her bed-head to her immediate supervisor?

**Later**

Abbott sat quietly nearby as she finished the coffee. It was prepared exactly to her taste. He must have been watching, as Jane once had, to discern her preferences. Though probably not for the same reasons that Jane had done it. Abbott was the boss. He didn't need to show off how observant he was. He didn't need to stay on her good side or apologize for treating her badly.

In fact, given that she had been sleeping in a temporary detention suite, with no authorization for using it in such an unorthodox fashion, she should probably be apologizing to Abbott. Again. She had to collect her thoughts first. She wasn't entirely sure that she could explain her reasoning. At the moment, it didn't fully make sense even to her. Was that because she was currently not firing on all cylinders, or because she had been too tired last night to be making rational decisions?

Yet another mystery to clear up once she was completely awake.

Meanwhile, she avoided the eyes of her silent companion, who seemed very interested in the decor of the detention center, for the moment.

"I take it this wasn't entirely a spur of the moment decision?" His question sounded almost off-hand. It took her a moment to realize that he was referring to her unusual sleeping arrangement. Rather than let him see her defensive bristling (especially since she was likely to be crabbier than was wise around a superior) she let herself play dumb, for once.

"What?" She didn't have to fake the slack jawed look. Morning just did that to her naturally. Unless she fought it by embracing her inner harpy.

He smiled, apparently not fooled. "The shower room down the hall has your shampoo, conditioner, and oral care products. And you have a robe and towels folded at the foot of your bed." Abbott raised an eyebrow at her. "You don't usually have those items at work, am I right?"

She shrugged, conceding the point. "Not unless I know we might pull an all-nighter."

He nodded. "Jane doesn't know you're here." It was a statement, not a question.

"I hope not. I'd never hear the end of it."

"You think that he'd object? He has been known to keep some interesting hours, himself. In very odd places. I suspect he asked for the couch so that he could nap here, as he did at the CBI. And I know he has spent the night here more than once."

She winced. "He would tell me to take better care of myself. Mind you, he never takes his own advice on that. And he would never admit that having me close by might be helpful."

Abbott glanced at her sharply, as if catching her in a falsehood. Or at least an inconsistency. "On the contrary. When he insisted that he would only work with the FBI if you were here too, that was a clear message. He doesn't just find you helpful. He finds you necessary."

She squinted at him, ignoring how the pull of her eyebrows made her headache momentarily worse.

Why hadn't she thought of that before?

It couldn't be true of course. The fact that it made a weird kind of sense in her current state was further evidence against it.

Besides, thinking along those lines would only build up hopes that could never be met.

Like that he might make changes to accommodate me. Or that the necessity of my presence might be more personal than professional.

I'm not chasing down that rabbit trail again.

Abbott raised an eyebrow and peered over his glasses at her with a fierce frown. "Do you doubt what I'm telling you?"

It wouldn't be polite to say yes. So she shook her head. But she also said, "I'm only necessary on his terms. Last night he tried to send me home before he left here." The sudden emergence of the memory made her feel angry and hurt all over again.

"Because you disputed the necessity of taking Mr. Delahey into FBI custody?" She recognized his ploy this time. It's one of Jane's favorites. Fishing for information by means of educated guesses prompts people to tell more than they intend, because they think you know more than you do. Or because they are quick to defend themselves against unfounded charges, even if it means giving away even more damning information.

She wasn't even sure what information she was holding back, but she hedged anyway. "What gives you that idea?"

This time Abbott did not answer right away. He leaned forward and looked at her intently. She had seen him look at suspects like that, when he was considering the best tactic for extracting sensitive information. She blinked and swallowed the dregs of the coffee, feeling entirely unprepared for an interrogation. He wouldn't have given me decaf on purpose, would he...?

"Teresa Lisbon," he began.

Uh-oh, she thought, sitting up very straight as she pushed down her panic.

"Did you sign this paperwork?" He handed her the file that he had been holding.

She laid it out on the bed beside her, trying to make sense of the printed forms. At the end of each was her name, in her handwriting. She didn't remember signing it. But then, at the moment, she didn't remember much of anything. And maybe that was a good thing. Except that she knew it wouldn't play well for Abbott.

She looked up at him again, mouth agape. No words came out.

He held his pose.

Finally she found her voice. "Where did you get this?"

He hesitated briefly, eyes narrowed. "Jane."

She blinked some more, processing that. Remembering where her primary loyalties were focused. Who she trusted more. "It's my signature." His face gave no clue to his response. Did he believe her? Did he hear the slight uncertainty, notice the careful wording? "I'm sorry, I think I need more coffee. And maybe glasses." Self-deprecating humor sometimes could defuse tough situations, she knew. And, in fact, she had found reading more difficult lately. Was it time to look into bifocals?

Dennis sighed, retrieved the file, and shook his head almost sadly. "Do you honestly think that I'd fire Jane over something like this? Or press charges? You know that I've long since figured out how important you both are to this team, right?"

Now her anxiety spiked even more sharply. The gentle paternal tone was used so very rarely. It had to be another ploy, right? It couldn't be that he really cared about her or about Jane.

But her resources for evasion were extremely limited at the moment. She fell back on the truth, knowing that, at least, would give her the fabled and elusive believable deniability that Jane loved to extend to her. "I honestly think that I'm still barely awake, and that my memories of last night are foggy at best."

Abbott cocked his head, with an expression of more urgent concern. "Jane wouldn't have hypnotized you, would he?"

She opened her eyes wide, shocked at the suggestion that she had never considered. Without thinking, she blurted out "He never has before, without my permission!"

Abbott actually seemed reassured by this, though she wasn't sure why. "Then let me try to help you reconstruct the events of last night. It's important for me to understand what happened, but please understand that I am not looking to get either of you in trouble. I intend to follow through on this case, and I need all the facts to know how best to conduct the investigation."

The case. The burly, belligerent man who claimed there were no females in his home. The young woman, injured and dying in a stranger's bed. Jane on his knees at her side, speaking gently, soothingly. Staring into her eyes even after they no longer saw him.

"You... you're opening the case?" A sense of relief flooded her, along with utter astonishment.

He proffered the pages again, showing his own signature under each of hers. He had signed off on all this, even not knowing if her signature was or was not a forgery?

"So. You were on a date with Pike. The night before your day off. I'm sure you had plans. But then Jane called. What did he say?"

"That there was a woman in trouble, being held against her will. That he needed back-up."

"And when you arrived?"

She paused. Their argument wasn't relevant to the case, was it? "We went to the door and knocked. Mr. Delahey opened the door. He appeared agitated. We asked him about the woman, and he denied that there was one. Then we heard her cry out. I took out my firearm and entered. We located the woman in a bedroom, seriously injured..."

Dennis nodded, "I've read the report. The account squares with yours. It's even more articulate than you are, at the moment. It almost sounds more like you than you." A slight smile tugged at his lips. "But I've read... reams of reports that you authored. This is cleaner than any of them. Not to mention being completed by computer. That's not something a person learns to do overnight." He fingered the file, thoughtfully. "On the other hand, an observant man in a certain frame of mind might get help to access the computers and borrow the voice a woman he knows very well to say what he knows needs to be said."

She remembered Jane's stricken face, how it seemed frozen that way until the local authorities showed up. Then his deadpan assumption that the case belonged to the feds. She went along with him, hurting for him, blaming herself for not trusting his judgment in the first place, for even thinking that he would lie to pull her away from a date.

He must have seen how tired she was. That she was far from confident that they could make a case for FBI jurisdiction to Abbott. That the idea of staying up to complete the paperwork was overwhelming to her. And of course she knew that any delay would be barely tolerable to him.

That must be why he said it. "Lisbon, you should go back to your date. Call Pike. He cares about you, he will be waiting to make sure everything's okay. I'm going to call Wylie to get a ride to headquarters."

She had shaken her head impatiently. "If we are taking Delahey into custody FBI, I think you need a more experienced agent to help bring him in."

"You honestly don't think Wylie and I can handle him?"

"Not if Wylie is also driving." She had not wanted to cast aspersions on Wylie's reliability with firearms, but she knew that she had never actually seen him handle a weapon.

"Okay. You come with us headquarters, and then call a cab."

"And just where were you thinking of keeping him?"

"In the short term detention suite."

"And who did you think would authorize that at this late hour?" Jane never considered the bureaucratic elements of his plans.

"We need authorization?" He blinked innocently.

"Yes! Use of the detention suite and the availability of two trained agents on guard requires someone in authority to sign off. Have you never bothered to read regulations?"

"Alright, I'll make other arrangements. Trust me, I can arrange this."

"And who's going to do the paperwork? You?" She had laughed bitterly.

He had looked at her silently for a moment. She thought she detected a proud, stubborn set to his jaw. But he only said. "It can wait until morning."

Lisbon snapped back to the present, where Abbott watching her carefully. He had guessed much of this already. He just wanted confirmation that his team would reward his trust by being forthright. Secrets within a team were a bear to manage, she knew from hard experience. And hadn't Abbott just proven that he could keep hers? Even Jane's?

"What else do you need to know, sir?"