A/N: The first time Ethan notices...please read and review :)

Disclaimer: I do not in any way profit from the story and all creative rights to the characters belong to their original creator.

Ethan notices the small things about his team, like how Jane occasionally gets lost in her own mind and plays with the locket around her neck, which Ethan knows contains a picture of Hanaway. It is against all protocols, each agent who was lost in the line of duty has to erased from all records in a matter of days. Ethan doesn't mention it, but he knows all the same just like he knows that Benji carries around a rabbit's foot in his backpack. Ethan hopes it's just Benji's idea of a joke, but then again he isn't the first superstitious agent Ethan has seen over the years. So, it surprises Ethan that it takes him so long to realize that he has never seen Brandt sleep, not even once in all the months the team had worked together.

They share rooms quite frequently, not just for safety but also to provide each other with emotional support after a harrowing mission. Benji usually falls asleep as soon as his head hits the pillow, and Ethan is still awake more often than not when Jane doses off as well. But not Brandt, every time Ethan glances at him his eyes are closed and his breathing is carefully regulated, and he hardly moves but Ethan can easily tell he was still wide awake each time, he just hasn't registered it earlier. It isn't exactly unusual for agents to be light sleepers, but Brandt doesn't even fall asleep after the most exhausting missions, the days when Ethan can feel his own eyelids fall shut in a matter of seconds.

"Why isn't the fact that you are an insomniac in your file?" He asks Brandt one day, deciding to take the direct approach. Brandt is one of the few people Ethan can't read easily, but he has found that when asked a direct question, the analyst rarely lies.

"Huh?" The expression of confusion on Brandt's face was genuine, as far as Ethan can tell.

"You barely sleep, it's the kind of thing that should be on your personal file."

"I am not an insomniac, I just…I have trouble falling asleep at times that's all." Brandt shrugs, turning back to his laptop.

"Why?" Ethan finds himself morbidly curious, and ignores the clear 'back off' signals the other man is sending.

"I just need a little time to clear my mind of certain things, I have a lot of thoughts bouncing around." Brandt's tone is light but his eyes are haunted, the expression one that Ethan has only seen twice before, the first time in Dubai as the other agent had been confronted by Ethan about his true identity, and the other time in Seattle, when Brandt had confessed his involvement in Croatia.

"Did you have those many thoughts before Croatia?" Ethan blurts out as his mind makes the connection before he can even fully process the idea, but Brandt ignores him and focuses on the laptop again.