A/N: This takes place in May 2004, immediately after Great Barrier.

Returning violence for violence only multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
--Martin Luther King, Jr.

1:54 AM Saturday, May 22, 2004
Crown Heights, Brooklyn

Another wet, miserable night, Robert Goren thought as he got out of the cab into the rain. He paid the cabbie and trudged toward the flashing lights, zipping his jacket against the rain and wind. Just great. The rain would wash away more trace than they could likely afford to lose.

He pulled out his badge and showed it to the patrolman who challenged him. He continued toward the small group of people gathered near the body that had drawn them all out into the rain. The coroner's wagon was already there, but the body had not been moved. A tall woman in a dark raincoat intercepted him. "Major Case?"

He nodded. "Detective Goren. My partner..." He glanced around the area. "She's not here yet."

He didn't expect Eames to be there. The scene was much closer to his Brooklyn home than it was to her place in Queens. The body lay just inside the mouth of an alley between a Chinese restaurant and a pharmacy. Just after midnight, a clerk from the pharmacy had stepped out into the soggy night for a cigarette and discovered the body. Two hours had passed since the discovery of the body as two precincts disputed jurisdiction. The owner of the restaurant, who lived above his store, feared that the presence of the body would have a negative impact on his business, so he called his uncle, who worked at the Chinese embassy. The uncle called the mayor, who initiated a chain of phone calls that ended with Goren and Eames, and there was Goren, standing in the rain as a wet, resentful detective filled him in on the little they knew about the body. He was not quite sure if the detective who turned the case over to him resented relinquishing the case because it had initially been hers or if she was relieved to turn the case over, particularly given the cold, rainy weather. It was a miserable night to be out.

Goren approached the body, which had been covered by a tarp. After carefully folding back the tarp, he squatted beside the body, rubbing his temple in an attempt to relieve the dull ache behind his eyes. He and Eames weren't on call tonight—at least, they hadn't been until Uncle Quan called in his favor. He looked at his watch. Two AM. He pinched the bridge of his nose for a moment, then withdrew a flashlight from his jacket pocket and began his examination of the body.

Goren's ability to hyperfocus often served him well, and tonight it was a particular blessing. As he immersed himself in the details of the crime scene, he was able to chase away his discomfort--the ache in his head, the cold, wet chill of the rain, the thoughts that haunted his waking hours.

"Whose idea was it to get himself offed on a night like this?"

Drawn from his thoughts, Goren smiled at the familiar sarcastic tone. "I'm sure that wasn't her plan when she began her evening, Eames."

She walked around the body and squatted opposite him. He glanced at her, then did a double take. She had definitely been out when she got the call from Deakins. Still wearing a dress and dark slingbacks, she had not taken the time to change. Her hair was gathered at the back of her head, twisted and pinned up, and she wore more make-up than he was accustomed to seeing on her face. She pulled her raincoat more closely around her. After two false starts, he said, "I could have handled this, Eames. You didn't have to interrupt your date."

She shrugged, although she'd regretted calling it an evening. "Since we didn't know what we had, the captain wanted us to be miserable out here together."

Unspoken between them, but almost palpable, was the fact that after the last case, she wanted to make sure he had his bearings back. He didn't know whether it was concern for him or for the integrity of the case that brought her out. He turned his attention back to the body without commenting.

He wondered how much she sensed of his lingering guilt over the death of Ella Miyazaki, over his failure, once again, to bring Nicole Wallace to justice. The ache behind his eyes was back. Absently, he rubbed his temple.

Eames didn't miss his reaction to the unspoken truth in her explanation. She and Deakins were both worried about him, but she didn't want to make a fuss. He didn't need that. He needed normalcy, but she wasn't quite sure how to go about giving it to him. She got nothing from him to tell her what he was thinking or feeling. He was a master at playing his emotions very close. All she knew for certain was that every time Nicole Wallace slithered back into their lives, she took a piece of Goren with her when she left.

She opened her mouth to say something, but he spoke first, deflecting her concern with observations of the crime scene and the victim. "Female, late 20s. The angle of her head...her neck is broken...but there's an odd injury to her throat." He brushed the victim's hair from her throat with gloved fingers, pulling strands of hair from the bloody wound. "Not a ligature...or a slash...more like, uh...like a bite...but I don't think it's an animal bite."

"So, someone broke her neck and then bit her throat?"

"Or vice versa. Rodgers will be able to tell us if the bite is human or not, and if it happened pre- or post-mortem. The rain has washed away any blood that would have pooled if it was a pre-mortem wound, if this is where she was injured and died."

Sensing his frustration, she stood and looked around. "Lucky break for the killer, this rain."

Goren also looked around, watching the crime scene techs search for trace evidence that was likely not there. His mind, however, was no longer on the crime scene. He was searching for motivation on his way to determining what kind of person could have committed this crime. Lost in his head, he walked away from the body, eyes scanning the puddles and mud surrounding them, but there was nothing to find.

Eames followed him, pulling her coat tighter around her as the rainfall got heavier. They went into the pharmacy, where the clerk who found the body was sitting in the back, sucking on an oxygen mask as a paramedic took his blood pressure. Bennie Omoro was a thin man, dark-skinned with delicate, effeminate features to match his gestures. Goren tipped at the waist to catch the young man's eye. "Mr. Omoro? I'm Detective Goren. This is Detective Eames. We need to talk to you about what you saw."

Drawing another deep breath of oxygen, Omoro nodded. "She was just...laying there. It was dreadful, the poor thing," he said, his voice marked by a thick Jamaican accent.

"How long was it between breaks for you?"

"I clocked in at seven. I step out for a few puffs every couple of hours, so it was probably around 9 or 9:30 the last time I went out there." He dabbed at his eyes. "Usually, my boyfriend stops by when I take my midshift break, but he got called in to work, so I took my break a little later than usual. It was just after midnight and...and there she was!" Over the last three words, his voice raised an octave, wavered, and he started weeping again. "Oh, that poor girl!"

Goren looked at Eames, then back at Omoro. "Did you notice anything else? A car? Another person?"

"No. Once I saw that poor girl, I just freaked. I didn't even notice the rain."

Eyebrows arched, Goren looked at his partner again. He saw her struggle to keep a straight face as she pulled out her card, handing it to the clerk. "If you think of anything, Mr. Omoro, please give us a call. Even the smallest clue may be very helpful to us."

Omoro took the card and nodded. "Okay, honey, I will."

Goren and Eames left the pharmacy and returned to the alley, where the coroner's team was taking their readings and preparing the body for transport. Rodgers looked up as the detectives approached. "Body temperature indicates she was killed within the last six hours." Anticipating Goren's volley of questions, she added, "I have to get her back to the morgue before I can answer anything else. See me in the morning."

Goren stepped past the body into the alley and looked around. Eames followed him. "What are you looking for?"

"I'll know it if I see it."

She followed the beam of his flashlight, waiting for something out of the ordinary to jump out at them, but nothing did. Her thoughts returned to the victim and she asked, "After killing her, why would the perp bite her? Some kind of fetish?"

"Maybe. We'll see what Rodgers finds."

He looked at her as she shivered and pulled her coat more tightly around her. Without saying anything, he unzipped his jacket and slipped it off, draping it over her shoulders. She began to protest, but he moved away from her, continuing his exploration of the alley. Finding nothing, he finally said, "We're done here. We can't do anything more without Rodgers' report."

The body was being loaded into the ME's wagon as they left the alley and Eames looked up and down the street. "Where are you parked?"

"About half a block from my place. I took a cab." He looked around until he spotted her car, and he walked in that direction. Stopping beside her car, he said, "You should get out of the rain." His eyes quickly scanned her from head to toe. "You look nice. I'll see you in the morning."

He walked away, slicking his hand through his wet hair and wiping it on his jeans. "Bobby," she called after him. "Your jacket..."

He waved his hand without stopping or turning. Eames watched him with concerned eyes. He seemed out of sorts, but she couldn't place a finger on it. Could Nicole Wallace still be haunting him? She almost chased after him, but something held her back. She watched him until he turned the corner, out of sight.

She continued to stand in the rain, troubled, until one of the uniformed officers approached her. "Detective? Is everything all right?"

Drawn from her thoughts, she turned to look at him. "Everything is fine, thank you."

She pulled out her keys and got into her car. Halfway home, her concern for her partner finally overwhelmed her desire for the warmth of her bed, and she turned around, returning to Brooklyn.