Broken
The foundation was still there, Alex mused. She put the bottom of the coffee mug on the table and grabbed the glue. It wouldn't be worthy of holding a drink again, but at least she could preserve the memory. She reached out to the tube of mightyglue and dabbed a tiny pearl onto the first shard.
She never asked to be teamed up with him in the first place… and he's damn lucky she agreed to it. The first 4 people they asked found some excuse not to become his partner. Not because he wasn't good; the opposite. He was TOO good. Some of them couldn't work in his shadow; some of them couldn't stand up to him on the rare occasions when he was wrong. She, on the other hand, went into it knowing she was going to have to give him the reins most of the time, but she also knew she would not be in any man's shadow: even the great detective Robert Goren. Even with her resolve, she'd almost broken it off. "An acquired taste," she'd described him that way.
She tested the next piece and found the sweet spot that made it fit. She dabbed the glue again and held it in place while her thoughts continued.
It had been great the first couple of years. He really seemed to enjoy working with her, and not in a condescending kind of way. She enjoyed teasing him about being such a nerd.
The next piece was a little harder to fit, but she finally found it. He was fascinating to watch as he pieced together a criminal profile. She always gave her two cents, but most of the time he was 4 or 5 steps ahead of her already. He always listened, though. She had to give him credit for that.
The man was truly charming, another thing that made him a successful detective. He could turn it on with anyone, and get whatever he was looking for out of it: information, a look inside a desk drawer, or even a confession. She didn't doubt he could get inside other kinds of drawers as well, if he was of a mind to do so. And yet, she never felt he was anything but honest with her. The times he had charmed her had seemed so sincere.
She gathered up the broken pieces and tried to sort out which ones would be needed next. There had been bad times, too. Times when she was appalled by his compassion for a criminal. Times when he had gone a little too far indulging his temper. Alex couldn't fault him, he was human after all. She rubbed at a fault in the design on the cup. Some wounds leave scars.
At last the cup was nearing completion. It didn't look too bad, just a little cracked here and there. But there was a knick out of the last piece, which interfered with the pattern of color near the rim of the mug. Alex looked through the things on the table, hoping to find it. The doorbell rang. She sighed, put her hands on her hips, and went to answer the door.
He stood in silence, even after she opened the door. At last he muttered, "I'm sorry."
She looked him square in the eye. He meant it.
"Can I come in?" He asked, clearly intending to do as she wished.
Alex stepped away from the door, breathing the word "yeah."
He took it all in, all in an instant: the cluttered table, the smell of glue, the reassembled mug, the significance of the mug, the redness in her eyes from her earlier tears. "It's almost the way it was," he said.
"Almost," she agreed. "A lot of pieces."
It was like he understood that each piece had contained a thought, a memory, a resolution. "There's still one missing," he observed.
"Can't find it," she explained.
"I'll help." He scanned the countertops with his eyes, peeking under the edges of things here and there. She continued her search of the table top. Goren got down on his hands and knees and looked under the lip of the cabinets. "I got it!" he shouted cheerfully.
His hands were so gentle when he handed her the missing piece. She affixed it to the mug and took in the finished product. A good foundation, a lot of pieces, good ones, cracked ones, strong ones, slivers. He'd gotten her this mug after their first stake out together, when she complained about paper cups. She was afraid to use it at work, and so had kept it here at home: a reminder of her friendship with Bobby. And then earlier, when they were arguing, he'd grabbed at it without thinking and knocked it to the floor. Now, after all, it was still here; she was still here; Bobby was still here. And she couldn't have built it without him. As she placed it on the knick knack shelf, she felt his hand on hers.
"I'm sorry too," she said.
Bobby smiled. "Good as new."
Again, she saw in his eyes that he meant it.
THE END