Disclaimer: Not mine.

A/N: I went to wikipedia (which I love) and hit random article. The article that popped up was Synchronous Failure. I liked the word synchronous, so I'm using it as my inspiration. I'm touching on the same themes as in Coffee and Photographs, of Bobby vs. Goren. Enjoy and review, please.

Synchronous

Synchronous. Adjective. Occurring or existing at the same time.

Detective Goren was tall, imposing, broad shouldered and tended to tower over people. He always looked very in command of everything.

Bobby was tall, too, but he was more open, the kind of big man who let himself be clambered over by kids, and he usually tried to find some way of lowering himself to see eye to eye with those around him. He looked continually unsure of himself.

Detective Goren was smart as all hell, edgy, nervous, slightly twitchy, and mildly crazy. He scared people into confessing or he made them cocky enough to slip up. He accomplished the first by slamming things on the table and yelling loudly in their faces. He did the second by playing a role, usually that of the village idiot, deliberately acting stupid so that the criminal got careless.

Bobby was intelligent, kind, caring, and frustrated with the inability to be seen or heard by the people around him. He made people confess by befriending them, understanding them, sympathizing with them.

Detective Goren could only refer to people by their proper titles and to his partner by her last name. He still wasn't sure who to trust, and it showed. He scorned a social life because he was too busy saving the city from the evils that haunted it. He felt a bit like the Shadow at times... "Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows..." It was more interesting to lose himself in that evil.

Bobby was polite, unfailingly courteous, and secretly called his partner Alex in his head. He knew he could trust her with his life and his heart, but he wasn't sure how to tell her. He didn't really have a social life because he didn't think anyone wanted to spend time with him. He often worried that he was too tainted by what he saw, and strove to find ways to pull himself out of it before he became like his mother.

In general, Bobby got lost behind the heavy walls of Detective Robert Goren. He had his moments, and he made the most of them. The differences were endless, and yet both men shared the same body, personalities assumed depending on the situation and what it called for. There was only one real connecting similarity between the two, and that was that both of them were in the same relationship. Both of them were in love with Alex. And with Detective Alexandra Eames.

A/N: That last line got me thinking. Do you want me to do Alex vs. Detective Alexandra Eames? Cause I'm sure I could make that one work, too.