It was really hard to stay angry when Ashton was being all reasonable.

Brown eyes narrowed, and Quin frowned as he spoke, but then she sighed, dropping her arms to her sides.

It was impossible to stay mad when he actually apologized. She nodded. "Thank you for that." she said, blood pressure already starting to lower.

"And I'm sorry I get so vehement about this..." she said, brows drawing together. "I guess it's just a sore point."

"One I agree with," Ashton said evenly, doing his best to keep a neutral tone. "Nobody is above the law. I wasn't ever trying to say the mansion was, Quin. Just that it's risky to judge before you know. If people at the mansion do crimes, they're criminals. Just like if a couple of cops decide to start up an unapproved investigation behind everyone's backs."

He gave her a second to let his message sink in. Then, he glanced away. "It's been a long day, Quin. Maybe we should scrounge up some newspapers and get some rest."

Even if she was still mad, Quin was slightly mollified by her partner's admission that not even the people at the Mansion were above the law. The rest of his statement still threatened to make her blood boil, but she held herself in check. They were both on edge. She nodded her head, "Okay."

Ashton suggested that they grab some papers and crash out and Quin uncrossed her arms then wrapped them around her middle.

"I am really tired."

"Another option is to sign off and go home. There's nothing keeping us here but a sense of duty," He said blandly. "Our shifts ended hours ago."

Technically, a cop was always on-duty. If they saw a crime, it was their job to react. But currently, there weren't any crimes at the office, and they could work from home. They weren't expected to stick around at all hours for this. It helped, maybe, but having a well-rested cop helped more. One really couldn't get a good night's rest on newspapers with a stuffed animal pillow... even if the carpet was nice.

"I don’t want to have to drive across town if anything happens." Quin said, and honestly she wasn't ready to sit in a car with Ashton that long either. Things had come down to a mild simmer, but besides the fact that she didn't want to carpool...the idea of riding in another car through the hot mess outside simply wasn't attractive.

"I'll take my chances with the newspaper."

The redhead leaned against the door and sighed.

"Besides, I came across a few more things I want to look at."

"Decided, then." Ashton said.

He stepped up to the closet in the bunk room, opened it up, and snagged a Snoopy plush, then tossed it at Quin. He found himself a farting hippo pillow while Snoopy got good air time.

The stuffed animals were in the closet for kids who ended up at the police station and who were upset. It happened every now and then, when they wandered away from parents and were waiting to be reuinited. It also happened in more serious circumstances, but that didn't change the reason for having the animals there. They also made good pillows.

Quin caught the snoopy, and frowned slightly as Ashton pulled down some kind of grey thing that made sounds that were shockingly similar to farts. That was so childish...but oh well.

It wasn't like it really mattered anyway, they were sleeping on the floor, at least for a couple of hours.

Down went the pillow, and after shrugging out of the jacket she'd pulled from her locker, Quin followed it. The jacket would make a fine blanket for now...she was only taking a nap, after all.

Moseying on over, Ashton made his bed on the bunk room's floor. He went without a blanket, just kept his jacket on. The hippo farted as he lay his head down on it. He didn't say a word.

It didn't take long for them to fall asleep. It was a only nap, after all. He just had to rest his eyes. Then... zzzz.

The noise from police feet shuffling by woke him up. He sensed a disturbance in the force. His eyes sprang open, and his legs shortly followed. He caught up with the officers running by.

"What's going on?!" His voice came hard and fast. "And what's with the weird backpacks?"

One cop glanced over his shoulder at him, explaining. "Plutonium powers it. Whatever you do, don't cross the streams."

Suddenly, he was wearing one, too. Strapped in.

They came upon the first ghost as it flew through a wall, leaving a splat of green slime in its wake. Ashton turned his spirit suck-o-tron on the ghost. "Eat this, Slime-bag!" A beam of plasma lanced across the room, to lash around the ghoul like a rainbow lariat. He swung it into a wall with a satisfying splat. Then, he woke up.

Ashton blinked.

"Huh?"

The dream had just been about to get into the good part, too, with bikinis and Quin.

As it turned out…Ashton talked in his sleep.

Quin was a light sleeper, so the second he started muttering about backpacks and slime bags, her eyes flew open and she glared across the room.

It was dark, and a quick glance at her watch told Quin that at least it had been the few hours she had hoped for in a nap. That having been determined, she sat up and chucked the snoopy doll in her partner’s general direction.

The “Huh.” Didn’t sound anything like the rest of the words had…so she assumed she’d had the desired effect.

”Rise and shine.” she said, already climbing to her feet and pulling her arms into her jacket.

He hadn't been sleep-talking, nope. Nuh uh. Definitely not. Obviously not. And anyone who said differently was a liar. An ugly, baboon-faced, baboon butt-faced, liar. Both. At the same time. Which would be quite a feat, actually. But yes. A liar, all the same.

A pillow to the face is a cruel wake-up call. It hit. He stirred. He was upset about it. Screwed up his face, eyed her from across the room. Looked like he'd licked a lemon.

"Hell of a way to wake a guy," He muttered as he gathered his things. The hippo farted as he held it to his chest defensively. How dare she stir him from his nice lil dream show. "What time is it?"

"Time to work." Quin answered.

"And it's better than the way I woke up." she didn't say how that had been...somehow the redhead figured that wouldn't go over well.

She figured she should at least throw him a bit of a bone and Quin sighed as she reached for the lights, "It's been about three and a half hours. It's morning for the rest of the world. Let's see how things are progressing and get on those leads I thought up last night."

There, she'd offered the peace pipe...hopefully that had softened the blow delivered by the stuffed snoopy.

Ashton didn't ask how she'd been woken up. He had a feeling he didn't want to know. He didn't know why. He just did. So rise, he did. He regretted it almost instantly. Someone trotted in to shout at them about sleeping on the job.

He was a beady-eyed IA pack rat. "Why aren't you out there!?" he snapped. "With how things are, the department looks awful! We need more people making us look good! Do I have to screw up my eyes and stare at you some more, or are you going to get to work?"

Any potential remnants of Quin and his disagreements were lost to him, submerged below his sea of hate for this guy. He grunted in acknowledgement, Man for "I hear you. I'll get right on that." The little man turned, and snapped his gaze to the redhead. His pate was balding, with a semi-circle in the middle, and he had a five-o-clock shadow before 5. His eyes had the crazed look of someone out of their gourd from stress. "You," he said. "Same thing. WORK!" That little outburst accomplished, he turned and stomped away.

Ashton turned the hippo in his hands gratefully, then walked it to the closet to put it away.

"Internal Affairs..." He grumbled.

It was the wrong day for a short little balding Internal Affairs jerk to tell Quin she needed to work after she'd had a concussion, had her car flipped, all of her credit cards stolen, and had only had 3 hours of sleep on a cold hard floor.

"I don't see you out there!" she called after him, then crossed her arms as he came back and proceeded to tell her, loudly, exactly why he wasn't out there. There were choice words thrown in, and the worst thing was, Quin couldn't do anything about it.

IA were scum, and completely unrepentant.

"You were right. I apologize."

The disgusting little man was still purple, but he nodded and turned.

"I want your asses on the street in 10 minutes."

Of course he did. After he was well and truly gone, Quin looked at Ashton and winced. Suddenly their issues didn't seem quite as big.

"I guess I owe you an apology too."

The devil. They were the devil. Internal Affairs were the ever-loving devil, and Quin had picked a fight with one. Bad move. She had moxie, but moxie only goes so far. In this case, it took her one step forward, then two steps back. He held his tongue, let the compensating IA jerk blow off steam, and when he was good and gone, stepped in to help his partner pick up her pride.

"You don't owe me anything, Quin." He said, shaking his head. A small smile slid across his face."But all the same, apology accepted. That guy was an ass. Let's get our gear."

The guy had been an ass, but it didn't make doing what he said any easier to know it.

Luckily, it turned out that Ashton wasn't an ass, and having him with her made the whole thing easier. Even more so when he took her apology gracefully. They gathered their gear and they made their way to a new squad car with no small amount of jibs from their fellow officers about bringing this one back in one piece.

Standing on the outside, Quin hesitated and frowned. "That ass didn't think about how hard it would be to go back out there."