The Other Wake Up Call

by Adair Coffin

Disclaimer: I do not own any of these characters and do not expect to make any money off of this. I just like to think about what happens when the cameras go dark.

Note: Thanks for all the feedback on the first part of Wake Up Call. I am lousy at titles, but I'm glad you all liked it. I originally wrote the two parts together, but Goren's side was more fleshed out. Just took me a few days more to reconstruct Eames. Constructive Criticism and Praise are always appreciated.

The Other Wake up Call.

Bastard.

What is this, the seventh grade? Great, Bobby, you're the winner. You proved all of your theories, and you managed to get the suspect to confess all on your own.

Bastard.

And now Peter Lyons won't come anywhere near me. What is that all about? Seven years as partners and today is the day you decide you want to get territorial? No, that's not even the word for it. I have never seen my partner be so hostile to anyone who would try to help us, who happens to be on our side. When he was finished with his little performance, and he slid into my chair next to Peter, I tried to catch his eye, but he only glanced up briefly.

I finish the booking, fill out the paperwork, and head for my car. I can't even look at him as I leave the squad room. He doesn't seem to even notice I'm leaving. As I drive home, I realize that we're in for a storm.

Done, I am so done with him.

When I get home, I pace my living room, back and forth. I wait for the phone to ring, but I know it's not going to, not unless there's a new body out there that needs to be poked and prodded and sniffed and solved. He sounds more like a bloodhound with that description…

No, he probably went home to have a beer and relax and congratulate himself on a job well done today, scaring off whatever imagined competition he thinks he has.

Maybe I should have him committed. I wonder if I can get him pink slipped. As his partner, I should have a say.

I've got it bad, don't I.

I am tired of pacing my own living room. I drive the twenty minutes to his neighborhood. I sit in the car, thinking of the million ways this confrontation could go.

If I hang myself out to dry, I only have him to blame, right?

I reach up, and snapp off my bra. Fine, Bobby. If you're going to play hardball, so am I.

It's pouring. It's freezing, but I can't feel anything as I stalk down the block. Thankfully, it's cloudy, and getting darker, and none of the passerby can see what a spectacle I'm making of my myself.

I hit the buzzer at his building and I hear him.

"Yeah?"

"You need to come down here."

"Eames- everything okay?"

"I need you- I need you to come down."

There's a brief pause. "Okay."

He appears through the foyer glass, and then he's stopped in his tracks on the top step.

Oh, yes, I have got it bad.

"You just don't get it, do you? You're just that thick when it comes to me, right? Detective Lyons was not only helpful, he was insightful, and that just really pisses you off, doesn't it, that you're not the only bright boy in the room. It's not fair, Bobby, you can't do that, and not expect…"

"Eames?"

He's trying to stay calm. He's failing miserably. I can see it all over his face, in the way he's staring at me. Good, that was the point of this exercise- no sideways looks, no glancing over your shoulder to make sure I'm still there, no dropping the eyelids. I want you to look directly at me.

He's joined me in the rain in a New York minute, and put an arm to my waist. His eyes have gone cloudy and dark, and they are thinking a million things. I can hear his brain going. I'm impressed that it still is. I have just made the most overly dramatic gesture of my entire life.

He takes in one of those deep breaths, the same one he takes when we're in interrogation and he's smelled his prey in the water and he's moving in for the kill. That's me right now, by the way.

And I thought I had all the power here. But I can feel that my legs are turning to jelly, and I'm going to fall down and ruin this. But then I realize he's holding me so close.

Oh God.

"Bobby."

"Huh?"

He kisses me. Well, so much for that. Show's over, folks. I've finally crossed the line. Good-bye, forever, Peter Lyons' of the world. Alex Eames just gave up any right to complain.

Especially when he picks me up and carries me up three flights of stairs to his apartment, and tosses me on his bed. No more thinking, now I am just burning, no matter how wet from the rain I am. The next moments are a blur, until he enters me, and I cry out. It hurt, but I feel. I feel sensations that I thought had died a very long time ago. He tosses me around like a doll, and I let him, let him find his own need.

Jesus…

Then I hear him, growling in my ear, something about not moving until he says so, that he's not finished with me. Of course he's not, I think, as I nod. I am a little frightened, but every one of my senses, every nerve ending is alive.

I am regaining some thought, and now I have made him. There are plenty of well- adjusted girls out there for guys like Peter Lyons. Robert Goren, handsome and charming though he is, is less likely to find what he needs and when he does, he is going to protect it- her- from any threat, perceived or real. And that person had better just get used to it, because he's not going to change, and he's not going to disappear and he sure as hell isn't going to apologize.

That person is lying breathless beneath him, more than content with that explanation, and more than content with her own choices. She is especially fine with the choice to leave her bra in the car. Cheap trick, I know, but to paraphrase my partner, sometimes you just need the right stimulus.

A few hours later, as we lie spent and exhausted on his bedroom floor, I can hear his heart through his chest. It's strong and even.

"Now do you get it", I ask, in a whisper. I could have even said, Now you get it. Not a question.

"Uh huh", he answers and I think he actually does.