AN: I don't think there are any specific spoilers but be warned - I've been watching a lot of Season Six lately on the iTunes…

Oh and please be gentle with me, I'm new to this game grin

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Partner.

It's a word that I say, what, a dozen? Twenty times a day? I'm always referring to my partner, introducing her to the people we interview – "I'm Detective Goren, this is my partner, Detective Eames." But what does it really mean?

I've often been accused of over-thinking things. I don't have to think about this – I know what I mean when I say it. But lately I've been thinking, what does she mean when she says it?

Like with my brother, that day on the street. Asked if she was my wife. No, assumed it. Sure, we play that game, leverage our odd-couple pairing and hard-won sixth sense of each other to get the perps to spill the goods. But if my own (drug-addled-gambling-addict-homeless-fuckup-of-a) brother looks at us and thinks that…

Well, I'll be honest. When I say it, I am referring to a deep connection. It's more than marriage. How many marriages do we come across every day in the course of our investigations that are devoid of any sense of two people coming together in any sort of partnership, let alone the one I conjure with that word? Eames and I, we hand our lives to each other every morning when we walk in the squad and I'm not even talking about Eames' driving. Earlier this year when all that shit went down, with the Gages and that case out on Long Island… sometimes it all crystallizes in a convergence of events that makes you question everything you ever felt, every word you ever said. The clarity that comes shortly after those moments of gut-twisting, brain-burning fear.

So what kind of partner have I been lately? Yeah, I know I've been a complete shit. My mother is busy raging against the dying of the light, and all I can do is push away the one person who's always been there for me. The one person who never questioned, took care of me, my partner. Hell, I didn't even tell Eames until I had to let it slip to push a perp. That's not usually the way I like to reveal the details of my personal life to any of my friends, least of all my partner. I've been withdrawing into myself lately, pulling back those tentacles of emotional connection that slowly crept out over the last five years and started to draw Eames into my own twisted little world. I'm getting ready. Because when Mom is gone, I'm not sure what's going to be left of me.

There is that danger, being trained as a profiler, that eventually you will start to profile yourself. And as Dec said, I could have gone either way. I still could.