Turbulence

"You know, she… she wanted to… change me." Goren cupped his glass in his hands and stretched his back a little. "I…" he scoffed, "I'm too old to change."

The bartender wiped down the bar in front of him.

"You probably hear this all the time."

The bartender shrugged and kept working.

"I don't know why I thought she'd be different. I guess… you think you know somebody, and then…." Bobby downed the last of his drink. He reached into his pocket, extracted his wallet, and threw some bills down on the bar. "Thanks for listening."

Bobby Goren pulled on his winter coat and headed out into the biting cold of the New York City streets.

"You knew this would happen," Liz told her, busily drying dishes and putting them back into the cabinets.

Alex stopped the motion of the towel inside the glass and stared at the kitchen window for a moment. She wondered if Liz was right.

"I mean, since the day you met him, you've always made excuses for him. 'He's different, quirky, he's gone through a lot…' I can't believe you ever decided to date him in the first place."

Silently, Alex nodded. She finished wiping the glass and put it in the cabinet.

Alex was paired up with Logan for the week. Bobby had managed to send himself to Michigan on a consultation. On the one hand, she missed him. On the other, she knew it was best for both of them not to try to work together until they'd sorted some of this out.

"Eames, did you hear me?" Mike asked, coming three paces back down the hall for her.

"Sorry, Mike, I'm a little distracted."

"I noticed." He glanced around and decided they had enough privacy for the moment. Mike lowered his voice. "What the hell is wrong?"

Alex sighed. She knew Mike had good intentions, but she couldn't talk to him about Bobby. "Nothing. I'm sorry." They walked together down the hall.

Goren threw himself completely into the case, and by three days in, they knew who they were looking for. As the locals chased down the suspect, he found himself with more and more time on his hands. He was sitting in the hotel room now, looking out the picture windows at a very wet snowstorm. His thoughts were consumed with Alex.

He'd tried to accommodate her, but whatever he did, it wasn't enough. And the bottom line was, he didn't want to darken her world with his own. When Bobby's ghosts came to haunt him, he needed to escape, and Alex couldn't accept that. It wasn't that she wouldn't let him be alone, but she wanted to be able to have him available, at the tip of her fingers.

When it came down to it, she really didn't understand his darker side.

"Hey, Johnny," Alex answered her door. She stood strong, as always, but he read the sadness in her right away.

"Hey, sis." Johnny shed his coat and hung it over the back of a kitchen chair. "Look, Alex, Liz told me about Bobby."

She sighed.

"Honestly, I'm not too happy with her right now."

Alex glanced up. "Why?"

"The things she said to you. I mean, Alex, you've known him forever! There's nothing wrong with giving love a good chance."

She smiled then, a pain-filled, grateful smile, and accepted a hug from her brother. After a few minutes, she pulled away. "You want some dinner?" She asked.

"Sure," he said. As she threw a sandwich together for him, he asked, "How's work going?"

"Bobby's out of town," she said. "He went to Michigan for at least a week. It's easier this way."

"You wanna talk about what happened?"

She set the plate in front of her brother and sat down in a chair across from him. Alex shrugged. "He started to get… withdrawn. He went out one night and didn't come home. I called, but he didn't answer." Alex shook her head. "I mean, in a way, Liz is right. It's nothing new, nothing he's not done before."

"But you thought he would answer."

"I thought since… things were different between us, yes." She folded her hands in front of her. "He finally came home the next night, and I confronted him about it. We had a huge blowout. He said I was trying to change him." She sat in silence for a few minutes, and then pushed back the chair with a scrape. Alex grabbed the washcloth and started wiping down the sink. "I might put in for a transfer. There are several precincts closer to home…"

"Alex, no."

She scrubbed furiously as she spoke. "I can't work with him, Johnny. Not now. Nothing will ever be the same between us."

"You don't know that you can't work with him. It'll be awkward for a while, sure. Probably painful. But you may end up with something better than what you had before." Johnny stood up and walked over to his sister, turning her to face him. "You two know each other. You read each other so well. You've had each other's backs for years. That's not going to change because you had a romance. You still care about him, and he still cares about you. There's no reason to quit the partnership, not until you give it a chance."

Tears welled up in her eyes and she shook her head as she spoke. "That all sounds reasonable, Johnny, but… I don't think I can do it!" She threw the wet rag into the sink with a slap and tried to bury her tears.

He pulled her into his arms again.

He'd changed his flight schedule so he wouldn't return until Sunday night. He didn't want to see her yet; to have to face her; to talk to her. Bobby felt like there was a gaping hole in the middle of his chest. It ached and burned and nagged at him constantly. He knew she was miserable, too, but he hoped somehow it wasn't as painful for her.

He knew seeing her would reopen the wound, and he didn't want to go through that.

Maybe with the snow, his flight would be delayed.

Maybe he wouldn't have to see her until later in the week.