"You know," he says slowly, his voice pulling her away from the contented slumber she's been bordering on for last several minutes, "you do kind of leave your clothes everywhere."

She rolls over onto her side, and props herself up on her left elbow to glare. Alan is lying beside her on his back, shoulders elevated on his pillow, arms crossed over his bare chest. His eyebrows are raised.

He's feigning casual observation as he looks at the jacket she's discarded at the end of the bed, the jeans dropped over the chair back by the door, the bra hanging by its shoulder strap from the doorknob itself, her enormous glasses that reflect the windows light from their cast off place on the dresser, and the shoes thrown into the corner.

She reaches under her, and then smacks him heartily with the pillow she withdraws. He shields himself with one arm, and grins at her as he brushes the feather filled, improvised weapon aside again.

"What?" he says impishly, his voice roughened by his amusement.

She rolls her eyes, and groans.

"You know, you and Flynn would get along better than you think."

She rolls over again, crossing her arms over her chest, a motion that tugs her white tank top a little higher on her torso. She tugs the blanket up around her with one hand, aware of how her counterpart's eyes have just drifted down to the little strip of exposed skin between the aforementioned shirt and her underwear as a result.

She smirks to herself, still staring at the wall.

"What's that supposed to mean?" he says, rolling onto the prop of his own elbow, leaning over her side.

She turns her face against the mattress to hide her impending grin. Alan, while himself unaware of this fact, is infinitely more entertaining to her when he's pretending to be irritated.

"It means you both," she rolls over to look into his face, letting her smile melt into a teasing smirk as her eyebrows fly up under her bangs, "are completely obnoxious."

She presses her palm into his forehead, playfully repelling him. He scrunches up his features, but stubbornly refuses to so much as pretend she's managed to move him.

"Watch what you say about your new boss," he says sarcastically, rolling his eyes. But she knows better. He's come to like the guy in the preceding hours despite himself.

Besides, it wasn't as if Alan had ever had anything nice to say about Dillinger anyway. In fact, most of his words for the man had been rather colorful.

"Uh-huuh," she says, and rolls over onto her side again, "whatever you say, dear."

She wonders, vaguely, what his expression must look like. The endearment, so profoundly like something her mother would have said to her father, so . . . domestic, was a slip of the tongue she hadn't intended.

A sort of "hmph" kind of noise is his only response, somewhere between curiosity and defeat. The mattress shifts under them as he lies back down.

They remain like that, awkwardly and yet comfortably silent, for several minutes.

"Alan?" she ventures finally without turning to look at him, her scientist's curiosity beginning to nag at her consciousness.

The mattress quakes and bounces in reply, and suddenly, his arm is around her shoulders, holding her hand where it lies in front of her on the bed.

"Good night, Lora," he says, and kisses her hair.

Then, as if nothing happened, he rolls back over, and in what seems to her suddenly busy mind like no time at all, she can hear the near-snoring breaths of Alan asleep.

The corner of her mouth flicks up into a smile.

She's never considered herself a "domestic" kind of girl. But for just a moment there, one crazy little moment, it had suddenly seemed like maybe . . . just maybe," domestic" wouldn't have actually be too terrible. Maybe.

The smile doesn't fade until she's fallen asleep herself.