Title: Not Just Brain Matter
Summary: Bobby wonders what someone would see if they opened up his brain. A heart biopsy might have to be included with it too, though.
Disclaimer: No, I don't own Robert Goren or Alex Eames, no matter how much I'd like to.
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He wondered what one would see if they cracked open his skull and looked in his head. Brain matter, obviously, using today's primitive scientific techniques. But what about future scientific methods? What would someone see then?
He had specific categories in his head for everything. Likes, Dislikes, Fears, People He Loved, Important Possessions, Fond Memories, Criminal Minds, etcetera. His favorite place to be was Fond Memories. Least favorite wasn't his Fears – it was Criminal Minds.
As hard as he tried, when he was done dissecting a criminal's psyche and returned to the real world – a world not muddled by drugs or booze or whatever the hell else the perp was on – he couldn't quite get completely rid of the person's mind.
So he locked them away in a little place in the back of his own mind, rather a Pandora's box of criminal intents and feelings. If anyone ever opened that up, whoo, they were going to be in for a shock.
How could one man, they'd wonder, bottle up so much pain and anguish and suffering and not do anything about it? Especially when it wasn't his own?
Well, with his own pain, of course. And his own happiness, no matter how small it might ever be.
His own pain greatly overtook anything the criminals put him through. His mother, her brain distorted by mental illness and disease, her thought process jumbled by the drugs, was a constant ache at the corner of his heart, no matter how many times she screamed wildly at him not to poison her food. He knew she didn't mean it… but it was hard to put out of his mind, all the same.
His brother, too. He'd been a bit of a screw-up ever since they were children, though he hated to use the term screw-up in conjunction with him. He didn't like to sound so nasty and judgmental. He sent him money every once in a while, though he could only hope that it wasn't wasted on crack or alcohol.
The Criminal Minds section of his brain should have been more than enough to send him to a mental institution, but coupled with his own pain? That should have caused him to spontaneously combust.
But his Fond Memories tempered him. Most of them involved Alex Eames, the best partner and friend he'd ever known - even if he was a little short and mysterious with her at times. But she never seemed to mind all that much; she just got right back up and kept going. As a matter of fact, there was hardly a good memory that didn't involve Eames in some way. There were only two without her – one, from when he was very little, and his mother was helping him button his coat. She'd smelled of vanilla and, faintly, cilantro – he thought she might have been cooking dinner, but could never be sure. The other was when he'd gotten his badge.
That was it – the extent of memories without Alex in them. God, if someone had opened up his head the way it was at present they'd think he was in love with her.
He'd thought reflectively for the past few months that that might be exactly the case. Maybe he was in love with Alexandra Nicole Eames. He certainly knew the ins and outs of her life, as she did his – mostly, anyway.
But who knew? Not even he did. That was one of the mysteries locked away in his mind, shut up so tightly even he himself couldn't get to it.
That was one of his defense systems. Anything that might leave him exposed or vulnerable immediately went into that titanium box, with the exception of his mother. He couldn't imagine how he'd let Eames find out about her. She was the first partner he'd ever allowed that happen to.
Maybe the box was weakening. Whenever he tried to open it nowadays, the top jiggled a little before slamming shut again. The lock was rusting; the defenses crumbling away.
He didn't like to think about what Eames would think of him if she ever saw him without his protective shell. That was intolerable, even to him, who half-wanted her to. Old habits die hard, and this one needed a fuckin' rocket launcher to kill it if he ever wanted to get anywhere with her.
She was on the People He Loved list as well, Alex Eames was, along with his mother and brother.
What a very short list. A very exclusive list. A list no one got on without the permission of his heart and his head.
What the hell, he thought. While they're doing my brain they should biopsy my heart too. See whatever the hell's in there. Maybe they can tell me something I don't know.
-Fin-