Jack enjoyed thinking about what she had in mind for the evening as he wasted no time getting into his basketball gear and heading back down the stairs. With JJ apparently feeling as well as he was over the last two days, Jack tried to keep his excitement in check to avoid future even more serious disappointments, but everything was going so well that it was difficult. The previous morning he’d gone back to see Bingham yet again and asked for some time off, not to avoid coming into the office but just from autopsies. As he’d suggested he would, Bingham had agreed immediately, although he’d asked Jack, in return, to at least sign out the murder case where the on-call ME had forgotten to have the hands bagged, so the issue could be put to bed. Jack had been happy to inform him it had already been done.

Freed from additional autopsies, Jack had been able to spend more of both days with Shawn and Sana, where things were also going well as moving along at a rapid pace. Sana expected to do the mitochondrial sequencing the next day, which Jack and James were hoping would tell them where the individual whose bones they were had originated. The question being whether they were from the Middle East, in which case they might still be the Virgin Mary’s, or from Rome, where they’d been ultimately buried, meaning they couldn’t be the Virgin Mary’s. As Jack ran across the street and entered the playground, he thought it ironic that just when he’d found the perfect distraction, JJ was doing better than he had for more than a month. Jack wondered if it would be appropriate with such a change to have JJ’s mouse antibody level tested in case they could again start his treatment.

As far as Luke was concerned, the dinner had been equally delicious as it had been the evening before and so different from what he was accustomed to, it was beyond his ability to describe. Unfortunately, what also had been the same was Shawn’s behavior. He’d totally refused to talk about the issue with the Virgin Mary and the ossuary, and, with scotch before dinner and wine making him drunk, he’d taken himself up to his room, supposedly for a short rest. By a little after nine, when Sana and Luke had finished the dishes and had come into the living room to stoke the fire and enjoy their Coke and wine, he still hadn’t appeared.

“I think I’ll check on Shawn,” Sana said, putting down her wine and before allowing herself to truly relax.

“He’ll be fine,” Luke protested, preferring not to see the inebriated and frustrating man again that evening.

“I’m thinking more about us than him,” Sana said with a smile while heading for the stairs.