A.N. These characters are not mine.

Blind Spot Revisited

(Sequel to His Waking Life and The Nightmare)

Chapter One

July 17, 2006

Sitting in a police issue SUV outside of a Duane Reade's Pharmacy, Robert Goren was juggling seven independent thoughts in his head. At least three of those thoughts were pressing, while the other four remained somewhat peripheral.

The first item that occupied his mind was the constant, all-encompassing heat. It was an oppressive humidity that had come with the latest off-the-chart record heat wave. As a child, his mother never had the means to put an air conditioning unit in their apartment. Living on the fourth floor of a six-story complex, all but engrained the concept that heat rises. The results, at times, were unbearable – and to this day, he abhorred summer in New York.

Given his intense dislike of body odor and sweat in general, he continued to run the air in the Ford Explorer. He was keenly aware of the eco-unfriendliness of such behavior (thought number five), but was more uncomfortable by the concept of drenching his dress shirt.

The second thought that occupied his mind revolved around Eames; who was currently retracing the same steps their indicted murder suspect had gone through on the day Angela Melo was murdered. He glanced down at his watch every so often to track Eames' progress. Upon ADA Carver's request, they only need prove that the suspect's statements, (regarding the suspects' whereabouts and activities during Melo's murder), were implausible.

The final pressing thought was one that was uniquely shared by the entire eleventh floor at One Police Plaza. It was that of the new captain, whose scheduled first day on the job would commence tomorrow. The interim captain, Matt Flynn, had been transitioning Daniel Ross, (Jimmy Deakin's permanent replacement), over the last week. Therefore, the entire unit had an opportunity to make initial contact with Daniel Ross, even if the impressions made were superficial at best.

He glanced back down at his watch. He'd just caught sight of Eames ducking out of the bank across the intersection. Eames looked both ways before shooting across the street, only to be rewarded by the angry horns of several irate drivers. He chuckled when he observed his partner return a rather rude hand gesture, before she rounded the corner only a few paces away. Through the rearview mirror, he watched as Eames took a sharp left, approaching the victim's apartment stoop before disappearing from full view as she climbed the stairs. Based on his last time check, it was already clear that Eames was well beyond the time frame their suspect had provided.

Within seconds, his phone beeped.

"Yes?"

"I'm in."

"Okay," he responded before hanging up. He ran his hand through his hair, despite the cool air blowing mid-force, he was still perspiring something awful. He frowned as another bead of sweat trickled down the inside of his dress shirt. He wiped his brow, scratched at his midsection and wished for an early autumn. Eames should be back any moment.

"How'd I do?" Eames queried as she opened the passenger-side door and plopped down beside him.

"It's unlikely I'd mess with you," he replied, suppressing a smile.

Eames looked at him cross-eyed, "I'm sorry?"

"Uh, you were interested in the time," he pulled out his notepad, "Carver's case should be airtight, as there is no way our suspect could have made his claimed trek cross town, subway ride, and have time to stop off at the bank before returning home in time to make the 9-1-1 call from the home line."

"Good," Eames sighed heavily, blowing the stray bangs from her face, "it's hotter than hell out there. So, what's with the 'not messing with me?'"

"The gesture you made," he scratched at his left sideburn, "and, uh, your expression, maybe it's because I know you, but it was, uh, fierce."

"Oh," Eames' cheeks flushed almost imperceptibly, "you saw that?"

He nodded, scrawling a few additional lines on his notepad.

"I guess you would have," Eames spoke as she leaned forward to visually skim his notes, "but even at my fastest pace, it looks like our suspect didn't even come close."

"True," he nodded afirmatively, "he didn't. He must have killed her, and then hit the ATM before coming back to make the call."

"Uh, do you want to?" he offered, gesturing to the steering well, knowing full well that she preferred to drive.

"No, thanks," Eames replied smiling, "You know, right from the start you noted that our suspect was the jealous type."

"Not just any kind of jealous," Goren set down his notepad and put the SVU into drive, "he had, uh, a deep passion for her," he looked left, and signaled before pulling out into traffic.

"But now what? A man with all that passion - he lost the woman he loved the moment he killed her."

"In his mind, it was better to lose her than bear the thought of anyone else having her. Anything else, uh, was too painful for him to bear."

Eames shook her head, "That kind of intensity, I can't wrap my head around it. It's too much sometimes. I have to distance myself, you know?"

"It's not for everybody."

Eames nodded in acknowledgement, but her eyes told a different story. Her expression was vacant as she stared out of the passenger window, her left index finger was busy picking at the corner of her left thumb. Clearly she was lost in her thoughts, and he would be lying if he didn't admit that it unnerved him slightly.

After several minutes, the detective part of his nature forced him to pry, "Have you heard anything else about the new guy?"

Her somewhat surprised reaction, told him that this was probably not the key to her recent pensive demeanor, "None. I still only know the same generic details that everyone knows: that Ross was the head of the Joint Task Force on International Money Laundering for three years, and in that time, I guess he really stood out, shook up the department and made a name for himself. Well, enough to help him stand out in the Chief of D's mind. Like my Dad always said, 'it's political.'"

He nodded in silent agreement, "We'll all know soon enough."

"I have heard on more than one occasion that Ross is a 'hands-on' captain. And if that's the case, he's going to be sticking his nose in our business much more than Jimmy."

"I've heard that too," he spoke quietly, thinking he might have found the key to why Eames had been so pre-occupied, "do you think he'll shake up our department too?"

"It's possible," Eames bit at her lower lip, "I've been trying to get the inside scoop, you know, get the details on all the measures Ross employed to turn the Joint Task Force around."

"And what does your instinct tell you?"

"Re-assignments are almost always unpopular internally, but if Ross wants to make major changes, he's probably going to make most of those changes immediately."

"And if Ross reassigned us?"

"He could, Bobby."

He nodded slowly, trying to exude as much calm as possible. It wasn't easy spending most of your waking life with an experienced detective. Eames could read his expressions just as well as he could read hers.

"Well," he swallowed thickly, "we'll, uh, deal with it when whatever it is comes our way."

Perhaps it was his own naivety, but since finding a comfortable working relationship with Eames, (something he'd never quite experienced before), he'd never even considered that at some point she might not be his partner. How would he react? Would he stay at Major Case? What would happen if he lost her, professionally and personally?

Several years ago, the line between a working partnership and a personal relationship had blurred. Currently they'd found an equilibrium of sorts, and worked through a complex aftermath of not having an intimate relationship outside of work. Finally, after much fluxuation, things had truly fallen into a comfortable rhythm.

And now quite suddenly, due to a change in the leadership of the Major Case department, he could be forced to look into the idea of a future without Eames. And with that, Robert Goren found himself juggling eight independent thoughts in his head.