Harry gave himself a couple of mental shakes, unnerved by the way the stranger with his face stared at him. "Well, it fit into a thirty-four waist when I left. I expect to get it back the same way."

"And I'd prefer if mine weren't exposed to a gallon of scotch whiskey while I'm gone, Harry."

That's why he's looking at me like that. If he's got my body, I've got his... Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute... "Wait a minute," Harry said aloud, turning to stare Al down again. "Would you mind telling me what's going on here? Do I look like he's supposed to look or what? Is this permanent? I am gonna..?"

Al set a hand out towards Harry in a shushing motion. "It's not permanent, you're not going to look like Sam forever, you'll be back in your own skin as soon as we can figure out how to get him out of it." He tried to sound comfortingly enthusiastic about the prospect, but as he fiddled with the handlink, he could tell that Ziggy was still drawing a blank about why Sam was here in the first place. Absently, he continued rambling in Harry's general direction.

"I didn't know what else to do but to bring you here. The nature of your job keeps almost all of your information away from us."

"Mm-hm," Harry sounded like he was barely paying attention, but the little noise was enough to keep Al talking.

"So far, the only thing we really know is that this whole thing wasn't about you."

Harry smiled faintly, remembering Dr. Alessi's words. "So I've been told." He started to wander, moving haltingly, as if he expected to hit a nonexistent wall with his face at any second. His legs carried him to a desk in the middle of the room, pushed up against another pair of facing desks.

And he just knew.

Al was still babbling and messing with the handlink. "So what I was wondering is if maybe you could tell us some stuff about yourself so we could get it into the system. That way, we can figure out where we are and why we're here and everyone can go on with life... such as it is." As he finished, he glanced up, doing a quick double-take when he saw that Harry was halfway across the room and very much not listening to him.

Instead, the detective had placed just the tips of his fingers over the neat little blotter on the desk in front of him, touching it as if it would crumble into dust if he pressed too hard.

"Harry?" Al said gently, coming over to stand beside him. "What's going on?"