My first fanfiction. Been thinking of stuff for a while, never had the guts to even try writing it down. So here it goes. Be gentle :)
oh...CI is not mine, neither are the characters.
Bobby sat alone in his apartment, nursing a bottle of beer. It had been an absolute day from hell. Ok, the week from hell. Whatever, he thought. It'd been going on for the past couple of months. Today it just all blew up at him.
A quiet knock at the door and Bobby dragged himself off the couch to answer it. On the other side was Alex Eames. Her face echoed the hurt and weariness he was sure was showing on his own.
"Hey," she said quietly.
"Hey," he replied, still standing in the doorway. He wasn't sure he wanted to let her in. The tension and awkwardness was thick.
"Can we talk?" Alex asked. Bobby didn't say a word. He just walked back into the apartment and sat on the back of the couch.
Alex stepped inside and closed the door behind her. She followed her partner into the apartment and stopped just a few feet in front of him. Sitting on the back of the couch, Bobby was much closer to Alex's height.
But still, neither of them could bring themselves to look at the other.
The fight they'd had that afternoon had been huge. Bigger than any they'd had before. The case they were working on was horrible. Too many dead, mutilated bodies. Too much blood. And for Alex, too many reminders of the terrible things that people do to each other, and the terrible things that had so nearly happened to her. Of course Alex saw terrible things everyday. It was a hazzard of the job. But these gruesome crime scenes were more than she could handle just two months after the kidnaping ordeal she'd been through. She wasn't going to admit it, but she was having a hard time. She was on edge.
The crime scene photos Bobby kept waving in her face were not helping at all. Then Bobby went and got all protective of her. In the interrogation room, a possible suspect got upset, rose from his chair and stormed towards the detectives. Bobby had stepped in front of Alex, shoving her behind him with his hand.
It was all Alex could do to keep her composure until the interrogation was over, and they were alone in one of the conference rooms. Then she let him have it. "How DARE you!" she seethed. "I am NOT some defenseless woman you have to protect! I am your partner. I am your equal, and I expect to be treated as such!"
Instead of an apology however, Bobby fired right back at her. "You are NOT handling this case, Eames!" he yelled. "You've been spacing out all week! You jump every time someone walks up behind you! You can't focus!" Bobby paced the conference room. "I need to know you can take care of yourself and work on this case. I need to know you're dealing with what happened to you. I need to know you've got my back."
Alex stood in disbelief. Her partner didn't trust her? Bobby had always trusted her, and she had trusted him. She was sure he trusted her when she told him she was alright to come back to work. She WAS alright. This had nothing to do with what happened to her when she'd been kidnaped.
She turned on her heel and walked back to her desk. She gathered her things and left. She knew Captain Ross was out in meetings for the rest of the afternoon, and she wasn't going to stay right now. She couldn't.
And now they were in Bobby's apartment. And neither could seem to find words to say to each other.
"Bobby," Alex started. He didn't look at her. Instead he took a drink from his beer.
She grabbed the bottle and set it on the end table next to the couch. Bobby looked at her.
Alex took a slow, shaky breath, and she looked up at Bobby. Her eyes shone as they began to fill with tears. "I...need..your help..." she finally whispered. Her face began to crumple as she again looked down at the floor. Bobby straightened and looked at Alex, his features beginning to show more concern than the contempt they had before. He ever so slowly raised a hand to lightly touch her elbow.
"...and I need to be able to help you," she finished as the tears rolled down her face.
Bobby gently pulled Alex toward him. Her arms wrapped around his neck, and he held her as she began to cry. "I'm sorry, Bobby," she sobbed. "I'm so sorry about your mom."
Bobby's eyes stung and he blinked hard to stave off the tears. He had tried not to burden her with the unpleasantness of his mother's illness. He knew she was having a hard enough time dealing with her own problems, so he didn't talk about it. But he was having a hard time with it. "We...we just... need to be here for each other," he murmured into her shoulder. "We keep up like this, both completely stressed out, and..."
"I know," Alex interrupted. "I know."
"Alex..." Bobby gently removed Alex's arms from around his neck and pulled back. She wouldn't look at his eyes, so he leaned over to look into hers. "...you're still having nightmares, aren't you?" he asked quietly.
Alex looked away as a fresh wave of tears threatened to spill over.
"Alex?"
She looked at Bobby out the corner of her eye, and nodded before returning to his embrace. Bobby just held her. "I still hear her, that woman, screaming," she confessed in a shaky voice. "She haunts me. I feel the shears on my face and I wake up in a cold sweat, and my arms ache."
Alex suddenly stood up and stepped back from Bobby, slightly embarrassed. She wiped at her face and gave him a weak smile. Bobby stood up and guided her to sit on the couch cushions. He went to the kitchen and grabbed two beers, opened them, sat next to Alex and handed one to her. They each took a long swig and sat in silence for a few minutes before Bobby spoke.
"I...I visited my mom this past weekend," he began. Alex watched him fidget, waiting for him to continue. When he seemed to be having trouble finding the words to go on, she cautiously asked him, "how is she?"
"Not very well," he answered. "She was having a rough day. Didn't really know who I was. Pretty agitated." Bobby gave a ragged sigh, "On top of that, the lymphoma, she...she's getting weaker by the day. Her...her delusions...they wear her out as it is. But she couldn't...she couldn't..." He gave up as his words caught in his throat.
Alex placed her hand on Bobby's arm. "It's okay, Bobby," she soothed. "I'm sorry."
Bobby got up and began to pace in his living room. Tears were threatening to fall, and he didn't want to let them. "I...I don't know what I'll do...when...when she's gone," he admitted. "I just don't know. She's all I have. My father left. My brother left. I only had her. But I had to care for her. And I've done it...all my life. I don't know what I'll do when she's dead." Bobby sat back on the couch and put his face in his hands.
Alex moved closer to him and put an arm over his shoulders. She could feel him trembling. "You won't be alone," she whispered. "I'll be here. I am here. We'll be here for each other."
Bobby's hands moved away from his face and he looked at Alex through his tears. She reached up and wiped the tear tracks from his face, and she took his hand in hers as she laid her head on his shoulder. Bobby kissed the top of her head lightly. "Thank you," he said. "Thank you for being a friend. Thank you for helping me."
Alex smiled softly, "Ditto."
The end.