Good PatRiot (boyxboy)

Life in Motion

As life settled back into a routine for Patric over the following days he took time to appreciate all the little things that he couldn't indulge in while with Jason. The first thing he did was contact Russell and say he'd be able to help at the food kitchen again. The man was overjoyed and even offered to let him live on his couch until he got back into the swing of things.

When Patric's life settled back into a routine he decided he'd conquer the elephant in his proverbial room known as Jason Grant. He wasn't stupid enough to think that his life was going to go back to the way it was before the killings happened. That wasn't possible. Patric'd take the good from the horrible crimes and keep in contact with the friends he had made. Sophie, Isabelle and Gabby were really awesome individuals. And Jason, for as much as a pain in the ass as that man was, Patric found him endearing, disturbingly so.

There was also the matter of the killer. He hadn't solved the case the way he wanted to and that little failure was bugging the shit out of him. He knew that code was the key to the case. All he had to do was figure it out. And Patric intended to do just that.

No way was this sick pyromaniac going to get away with murder.

After Patric left life came to a grinding halt for Jason. Peaceful. Normal. Mundane. Everything was going smoothly.

And he hated it.

There was no annoying rich kid following his every move. No Patric to banter with. And for some reason Jason didn't even want to begin to figure out, he missed that. So, about a week after the whole Patric being free to go thing, Jason was more than a little surprised, and really fucking annoyed, to see the blond sitting at his office desk acting like he owned the damn place.

"Who let this shit in?" Jason barked to the room and received three indifferent shrugs from his teammates.

"I missed you too, Jay!" Patric greeted happily.

"Yeah," Jason said, as close to agreeing with Patric as he could stand to be, at the moment. "Why're you here?" Not that Jay wasn't excited about the deviation from his normal day, but he had shit to do. Papers to fill out, organize and file. He didn't have time for this totally unwanted distraction.

With a great shit-eating grin Patric told the reason for his visit. "I figured out the code."

"You're full of shit!" Montoya blurted out excitedly before Jason had the chance to even open his mouth.

"What she said," Jay decided pointing his thumb back toward his teammate.

"Ooh, good one boss."

"Now," Jason began cracking his knuckles in anticipation, "What's this about the code?"

"It's so simple, I don't know why it took so long to crack," Patric exclaimed with a swish of his hands, "but the message doesn't exactly make sense," he cautioned before going into his explanation.

"What were the times of the murders?" Patric prompted the group.

Without missing a beat Sophie listed off, "3:09, 1:01, 1:13, 2:19 and 6:09."

"Yeah, we all know the times, keep going," Jason groused impatiently. He just wanted to know the fucking code already.

"Now, only look at the last two numbers of each time," Patric instructed with a knowing smile.

"09, 01, 13, 19, 09," Sophie supplied to the group.

They sat there and pondered those numbers a little before it clicked. Jason could almost see the exact moment each of them figured out the code. Sophie got a pleased smile on her face. Izzy said "Ooh," and smacked her head.

"Dayum, we're stupid," Montoya remarked.

"Yeah," Patric agreed. "Each time lines up with that numbered letter in the English alphabet," Patric finally explained, "making the message 'I-A-M-S-I'."

"I am si?" Montoya questioned. "Didja just switch to my mother tongue?"

"Nobody wants your mother's tongue," Platt quipped.

"Hey, come say that to my face," Montoya raged jumping out of her seat. "My mother has a beautiful tongue!"

"Said no one ever," Patric chimed in causing everyone to gawk at him then burst out laughing.

Once they regained their composure Sophie turned to Patric, "So what do you think the code means?"

Jason was curious to know as well. Obviously Montoya's message wasn't right. He folded his arms across his chest and leaned against the table waiting for Patric to enlighten them all.

"I actually think Montoya got the first two words right: 'I am,'" Patric said, surprising the hell out of Jay.

"Hey, good job Montoya," Jay praised.

"Said no one ever," Izzy was quick to chime in causing Montoya to growl and tackle her. She was muttering something about ripping that leg off and bashing Isabelle over the head with it when Patric turned to Sophie and Jay to finish the conversation, deeming the other two lost causes.

"Just tell me what you're thinking. I know you have an idea," Jason prodded.

"You're not going to like it," Patric began, stalling in the delivery of his apparent bad news.

"But we need to know," Sophie gently prodded prompting Patric into action.

"I think the killer's message... well there's really two options," Patric hesitated, "either S I stands for something or the message isn't finished yet."

With those chilling words floating in the air the room went silent, reflecting on all Patric had told them.

"Well," Jason decided, "I think you should see if you can find out what S I could mean. It's unlikely at this point that the killer will strike again. It's not within their normal characteristics to wait this long between killings.

Patric hung around the rest of the day and was so fucking useful that Jay couldn't even complain. But the day eventually came to a close and he was getting ready to walk out of Jason's life again.

"Good work today," Jason called to Patric as he was getting ready to leave their room.

Montoya snickered, apparently well aware of what Jason was trying to do here. Jay bounded toward the door, "Hey, uh, Patric," he reached out for Patric's arm to halt him leaving. Patric turned around still mildly shocked to hear Jason addressing him by name and rose an eyebrow at the man in question. "How 'bout you go to dinner with me sometime?" Jay suggested. He didn't want to let this snarky man disappear from his life without a fight.

To Jason's relief Patric grinned and shook his head in response before finally leaving for the day.