Summary: The first time Reese asks why there's no furniture, or really anything in his house, he gives his trademark non-answer. It takes a while for her to get to the bottom of it.

Disclaimer: Not mine. I just play with the characters.

Rating: K+

The first time Reese visits his home is when he gets shot. In all the chaos, she doesn't realise his interior design, or lack thereof. Weeks later, when he is released from hospital and she visits him at his house, her question comes back. She just can't understand why a man with so much money and so much room wouldn't fill his house up with nice, expensive, comfortable furniture. In fact, the only furniture he has is a bed, some chairs and a couch in one room, and one table. It's not that it would make living uncomfortable at all; it's just there are so many bare rooms.

"Crews, why don't you have any furniture in your house?"

"I do."

That wasn't the answer she was looking for and he knows it. Nevertheless, she doesn't press the matter. She knew it would take more than one try to get a proper answer out of him – she's been trying to get proper answers out of him for a year. After she leaves, she realises it's going to be a while before she finds out the real reason behind his lack of furniture.

LIFELIFELIFELIFELIFELIFE

The second time Reese asks why there's no furniture at home is when they are there poring over a case file. There wasn't any room on the kitchen counter or the table (due to Ted's business school marking) so they sit down on the ground in one of the many spare rooms.

"Seriously Crews, this would be so much easier with a table," she says, frustrated as she reaches for a picture that lay too far away from her.

"Would it? How do you know that it wouldn't be exactly the same? In fact, it would probably be harder, you'd be restricted by the chair you sat on," he replied, digging through the bowl of fruit he had brought with him into the room. "Do you want a pear?"

She ignores his question, instead giving him a hard look.

"No, this just doesn't make sense. You have the money, why don't you just buy furniture for all your rooms? Even your bedroom hardly has anything in it. I could count the furniture you have on one hand." She says, looking straight at him.

"Well it wouldn't be every Zen of me to have lots of material possessions would it?"

It's only after, when she's at home does she realise that Zen has nothing to do with it. He buys expensive suits. Conservative, but expensive, and he also has a penchant for cars that he swears he's not attached to. Being Zen has nothing to do with it, she decides.

LIFELIFELIFELIFELIFELIFE

The third time she asks him is at work. He opts to sit on the floor in one of their meetings with a felon when there is a perfectly comfortable chair on the other side of the room. What she doesn't realise, is that the place he's chosen is not only near the sun, but near windows and the door as well. The fact that it's very prison-like doesn't seem to register.

"So you sit on the ground at work too, it's not just an at home thing?" Reese says, as they're waiting for the felon to be let in.

"I felt like sitting on the ground today," Crews says as he peels an orange with his knife.

"I'm sure… You don't just have an aversion to chairs to you?"

He looks down at his fruit for a couple of seconds before looking back up to her. This is one of the times she can see through his walls that are constantly there.

"Why do you want to know why I don't have any furniture so badly, Reese? It's not like it's influencing my life or anything."

"I don't know. I just find it odd."

"There's a reason for everything… There's always a reason for everything."

After he says that, he goes silent, intent on devouring his orange. She doesn't press the matter.

LIFELIFELIFELIFELIFE

The last time she asks him is when she really does get an answer, but it wasn't the one she was expecting, and it didn't come about in the way she though it would. They're sitting in his house and he's making dinner. It's been almost 2 years since he got out of prison, and he's changed in that time. He's not fixed, he's nowhere near fixed, but she can tell that he has gotten better: His periods of zoning out are becoming less frequent, and he actually shares things with her now. He is more relaxed, and thinks less about being locked up again because even though he was exonerated there was always a lingering thought that he would be back in prison. He's less anxious and jumpy in confined spaces than he was the first few months back in the force. But even though all this has happened, Reese still hasn't gotten to the bottom of the mystery of his lack of furniture.

"Crews?"

"Mhmm?"

"It's been almost two years now. Why don't you have furniture?"

He turns around and looks straight at her.

"I didn't have furniture in prison."

It's with that statement that everything about it makes sense. The huge rooms are his idea of freedom which he relishes. The cars mean the same thing. It's not money, and it's not Zen. He doesn't care about clutter and it's nothing to do with having to take care of it. The simple reason, which she permanently overlooked, was the fact that he spent 12 years living in a room with a bed built into the wall and a toilet. There are only so many things a man can change.

"I just can't get used to the idea of having furniture. It's not the clutter I'm worried about; I'm just not used to it…"

"Maybe you should buy a kitchen table though…"