Disclaimer: What do you think?

A/N: Have fun and review, please! Sort of a sequel to Glancing Up.

Glancing Over

He watched his partner as he started taking to the suspect. Half his brain was involved in baiting the artist, trying to make him slip up, and the rest was doing what it always did, contemplated Eames.

Pulling a folding chair over, he sat down, backwards as usual. Words about cartoonists, their styles, and museum exhibits rolled smoothly from his mouth, but he barely heard them.

Alex was sitting in front of him. With her eyes open wide and head titled to one side, she looked innocent, naïve, and a bit lost. The image had a feeling of a subtle wrongness to it, because those were three things Alex was not. Normally, she looked infinitely comfortable, completely at home in the city. Innocent and naïve were definitely not facial expressions one would have expected from Alexandra Eames.

She was tough, more likely to be busting the bad guys, like she was doing now as a logical extension of the conversation they'd been having. He stood up to help her, still thinking about his partner as they handcuffed the artist.

He worried, sometimes. The idea that she would ever leave him weighed heavily on his mind. She was by far the best partner he'd ever had. She was beautiful, intelligent, and she understood him. When Bishop had replaced her for a while, he'd almost gone crazy. Oh, Bishop had been smart enough, but she couldn't follow his leaps of logic. He worried that one day he'd drive Eames away and then he'd be left facing the world alone again. That thought scared him beyond belief. It hadn't taken him long to realize how much Alex meant to him.

He also worried that if she left, he'd go crazy. Not like people said he was now, but truly insane. Alex was the thing that connected him to the world around him, without her, it would pass him by. Nothing would make sense if he couldn't bounce ideas off of Alex. Oh, he could solve cases, but he'd never be able to prove them to anyone because they wouldn't understand how he thought. As it was now, he could look to Alex for help describing situations, and she could take over if she had to, because she knew what he was thinking. Without her, he'd be lost in a world that didn't accept or understand him. It was a sobering thought.

With his hand in the small of her back, he escorted her towards the car, following the other cops with the prisoner. The idea that she was using herself as bait for any murderer, even if he was there and nothing could happen, had made him uncomfortable. As he opened the car door for his partner, her eyes shifted over towards him. It was only a glance, but then she smiled at him, a wide smile that made his knees quiver and all his worries disappear.

"I'm not going anywhere, Bobby." She slid behind the wheel. Damn her for noticing the fear in his eyes. Goren walked around to the passenger side, forcing himself to make light of the situation.

"I'll hold you to that." He sat next to her, and as she started the engine, muttered under his breath. "I will most definitely hold you to that."

A/N: Hope you liked it. Plot bunny strikes again. Anyhow, review, please! Make my day!