The Coffee Date

Chapter 14 - Meet The Golden Clue

It was dark but warm. It smelled fresh and comforting. The touch, soft, like a hug she didn't want to escape. Where was she?

Chestnut eyes peeled open and was met by a sea of dark outside of the glass pane before her. Odd, it seemed to be the middle of the night. Why was her body telling her to wake up? She glanced down at her "pillow" and suddenly it all hit her. The table. The glass. The cool feeling against her cheek.

She was sleeping at Nathan's kitchen table.

She jolted up, quickly but silently and glanced around. As she did so she felt whatever the warm sensation was against her back drift off. The feeling of cool night air smacked her arms as she grabbed the fabric and tugged it back over her shoulders. A blanket. She didn't grab one before she drifted off. She hadn't even planned to take a nap against the glass surface.

Then, she heard a gentle cough and glanced up, her eyes meeting Nathan's back resting on his couch.

Upon realizing that she had fallen asleep while they were going over case notes together, Nathan moved as quietly as possible to cover her up. He wasn't going to risk lifting and moving her altogether, fearing it may cause more damage than good. So instead he moved his work to the coffee table, allowing his kitchen to be used as a temporary resting place. Seeing as the two were now living together, maybe he would get used to her falling asleep around the house. The thought of chasing after her with a blanket brought a smile to his face; She was an adventure waiting to happen. Personally, he loved it. Even if others didn't. Even if others didn't bother to get to know her.

His gleeful thought crashed when a figure wandered beside him in socked feet, taking a seat beside him and nuzzling deeper into its fabric shell.

He grinned to himself.

Hazel.

"You should go back to sleep. You're exhausted."

"No no, if you're up then I can stay up and help." She assured softly. "I'll be okay."

He turned to her, his eyes studying her sleepy, cozy physique. She seemed content wrapped up in her blanket beside him. They hadn't spoken a word about the case yet and she was already eyeing the papers before her up and down. As always. He found her stubbornness charming at times when he wasn't pestering her to take a break. His hands worked their way to his coffee and handed it out to her. Untouched. Warm. Brimming with energy. Hazel's eyes brushed it's surface before brushing his own. He smiled warmly. "Are you sure you're okay?"

She smiled tenderly at him, taking the cup from his hands and taking a tiny sip. "Yeah, I'll be fine. I want to help you." Immediately she turned her attention back to the photos at hand. Yet again, there she went. Back to work. Maybe it would be nice to have a hard worker lingering around the house.

"I can't figure out why I moved these." He mumbled, lifting two photos off the table. They had been pushed to the other end of the surface, lingering just on the brink of tipping onto the floor. In his half-asleep state the night before he had removed them from the rest of the pile, believing that there was something different about them then the rest. He sighed, rubbing his temple and squeezing his eyes shut. He tossed the photos back onto the pile. Maybe he was overtired. A good nap could hopefully set him back on track.

"Wait." The urgency in Hazel's voice let him to look up. "I know what you mean. I see it." She lifted the photographs into her hands.

Maybe he wasn't so crazy after all.

She squinted, glancing back and forth between the two before slapping them down onto the table in success. "There." He finger pressed down against the countertop in the image, bare and clean.