Alex was sprawled on her couch when her cell phone, which was on a table across the room, started to ring. It took her two rings to struggle up to a sitting position, followed by another three rings to manage an awkward waddle across the floor, before she could get to it. "Hello?"

There was a short pause, and then: "Detective Eames?"

"Yeah." The caller was a woman, not her partner, and that meant she probably wasn't being called out. She tucked the portable phone between her ear and her shoulder and headed back to the couch. "Who's this?"

"Oh! Oh, sorry," the woman said. "It's Bishop. Look, I, uh . . . I hope I didn't wake you up or anything . . ."

Bishop was still talking, but her voice faded into the background of Alex's consciousness. The younger woman had never spoken to Alex outside of work at all, let alone called her at eight o'clock at night. Something was up. "Bishop," she said sharply, cutting off the woman's rambling apology.

Bishop cleared her throat. "Yeah, uh, sorry."

"Why are you calling me?" Alex asked, and then caught her breath as a possible reason popped into her head. "Bobby?" she blurted. "Is Bobby ok?"

"He's . . . he's not hurt or anything, no."

"Why doesn't that reassure me?" Alex said, trying to will sudden the tension back out of her muscles. "What's going on, Bishop?"

Bishop sighed. "We closed the case on Brody today."

"Oh!" she said, smiling a little as she pictured her partner's post-case look of satisfaction. "Well, that's usually a good thing. Why not tonight?"

"He kind of . . . freaked out on the guy."

Her smile faded and Alex sat up a little straighter. "What do you mean, he freaked out? What happened?"

"No, it's ok," Bishop said quickly, hearing the alarm in Alex's voice. "I don't mean 'freaked out,' freaked out. I just mean . . ." She paused, then sighed again. "He picked up a metal rod and took a couple swings at the suspect. He wasn't actually trying to hit him or anything - at least I don't think so - but he scared the hell out of me and Brody's daughter."

Alex groaned quietly, picturing the scene. "Why?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, what did the guy say to set him off?"

"That's the thing. He didn't."

"You're telling me Bobby just started swinging at the guy with no provocation, Bishop?"

"No. I mean . . . oh, I don't know!" Bishop exclaimed. "I don't understand three-quarters of the stuff he does. I just though maybe you would. Maybe you'd want to, you know, talk to him or something."

"Yeah," Alex muttered, attempting to bend over to reach her shoes but ending up toppling over on her side, her belly upsetting her center of gravity. "Yeah," she said again, righting herself with a groan of exasperation, "maybe I would. Is he still at work?"

"No. He took off once we were done with the booking. I have no idea where he is now."

"Ok." She dug one of her sneakers out from under the couch. "Don't worry about it. I'll find him."

Bishop let out an audible breath of relief. "Thank you. He probably wouldn't talk to me even if I tracked him down."

"It's fine, Bishop. Go watch TV or hit the sheets or whatever, ok?"

"Ok. Yeah. Thanks."

Alex rolled her eyes at the phone, wondering if she'd ever been as intimidated by Goren's manner as Bishop obviously was. "Like I said, it's fine. I'll see you tomorrow." Without giving Bishop time to thank her again, she disconnected the call and set the phone down on the couch beside her.

Her first course of action was to try his cell phone, although she didn't hold out much hope of him answering. As she pulled on her sneakers, she listened to the rings in her ear. One . . . two . . . three . . . four . . . and then his voicemail.

No big surprise there. She finished tying her shoes, sat up, and gave the situation a few seconds of thought. If I were Bobby Goren and I'd just lost my cool on a suspect . . . where would I be?

Too many options. She pushed to her feet with a grunt, momentarily wondering just how big the darn baby was going to get, and reached for her keys. She'd just have to survey his usual haunts until she found the one he'd picked for tonight.

She found him on the fourth try. After circling lower Manhattan and checking his favorite bar, the branch of the New York Public Library that he visited most often, and the niche under a bridge in Central Park where he'd retreated to once or twice - although she didn't really expect him to be there so late at night - she was heading back to her apartment to regroup when it occurred to her to check the small neighborhood park next to her building, where he'd been known to wait for her on days when he picked her up for work.

And that was where she found him, sitting on a ridiculously undersized swing and staring at his feet as he used them to push himself back and forth. "Bobby?" she said quietly, taking a tentative step toward him through the gates of the park.

His feet stilled and he tensed visibly at the sound of her voice. "Uh, hi," he murmured, eyes still on the ground.

She took a second to study what she could see of him - which was mostly the top of his head - and then sighed quietly and stepped into the sawdust that surrounded the playground equipment, crossing to the swing next to the one he was occupying and carefully lowering herself into it. "I can't believe either of us fits into these things anymore," she joked weakly, giving the chain that suspended his swing a little shake.

"Mmm."

Moving her hand to the chain that held her swing, she leaned forward as much as her belly allowed, trying to catch his eyes. "You want to tell me what happened today?"

He let out a breath and straightened up in his swing. "Bishop talked to you?"

"Yeah. Whatever you did, you freaked the hell out of her."

He blinked and turned his head to look at her. "She didn't tell you what I did?"

"She tried." She looked down at her feet and then used them to set her swing into motion. "She said it looked like you took a few swings at the suspect, but she didn't think you actually meant to hit the guy, but she didn't really know because she can't understand anything you do anyway."

"Oh."

"Yeah, 'oh.' Come on, Bobby," she said, laying a hand on his arm. "Whatever it was, you don't seem too happy about it either. Talk to me."

He shook his head and looked back down. "It was stupid. I . . . let myself get out of control."

"Bobby." Heaving her bulk out of the swing, she stood up and planted one hand on each of the chains of his swing, using them to support herself as she leaned down. "I could have figured that much out for myself. Tell me the rest of it." When he just pressed his lips together and shook his head again, she sighed and leaned closer until her nose was an inch from his. "Get up," she ordered.

"What?"

She stepped back, allowing him room to stand. "Get up. We might as well go inside and be comfortable while I work on you."

" 'Work on me'?" he asked even as he obediently stood. "I don't like the sound of that."

"You don't need to like it. Just go along with it."

She was still standing within arm's reach of him - probably so she could grab him if he tried to escape, he thought - and so he took a defensive step backward and took hold of the swing's chain again. "You shouldn't be out this late anyway. I should just go -"

"I don't think so," she countered, prying his hand off the swing. "I'm pregnant, Bobby, not sick. I'm not in bed by nine every night unless have a good incentive to be there."

Unsure of what kind of incentive she was hinting at, he cleared his throat and took another step back. "Sorry."

"It's ok," she sighed, tightening her hand on his wrist. "Now, will you please come upstairs with me?"

He nodded reluctantly, but then said, "Look, Eames, I don't know what she said to you . . . but I'm fine. Really. You don't need to be worried about me."

She favored him with a short roll of her eyes before heading for the door of her building, pulling him along behind her by the hand she had on his arm. "Enough with the excuses. Just come on."

Within ten minutes, she had him firmly ensconced on her couch with a beer in his hand and a marginally more relaxed look on his face. "Comfy?" she asked, dropping onto the couch next to him.

"I'm fine," he said uneasily, rolling the bottle between his hands. "Why do you still have beer around?"

"I do still have a social life, Bobby. Even if I'm not drinking, the people I have over - you, for one - might want to."

"Oh." He went back to playing with the bottle, this time picking at the label.

"Why'd you take a swing at the guy?"

Bobby stiffened at the unexpected salvo and ripped a large strip of the label off the bottle. "I wasn't exactly swinging at him."

"Mmm," she murmured noncommittally. "Then what were you doing?"

"I was . . . just trying to scare him."

"Why?"

"Why not?"

She just raised her eyebrows skeptically and waited.

After a few seconds of silence, he coughed uncomfortably. "I was pissed."

"No kidding," she said dryly. "You want to tell me why?"

"He's an anti-Semite."

"What else is new? Come on, Bobby, you've taken down everything from terrorists to rapists without going after them with a weapon. What was different about this guy?"

He shook his head and took a sip of beer that lasted far longer than it needed to. "He was so full of hate . . ."

"Ok," she said, nodding slowly, "That's a good start. What else?"

"He, uh . . ." He swallowed. "His mother . . . got sick. That's what triggered the murders."

"Uh-huh . . ." She leaned back into the corner of the couch and regarded him calmly. "What was she sick with?"

"She had cancer. Ovarian. He . . . the mother had had an affair with her boss when he was a kid. The boss was Jewish."

"And?"

"And . . . he thought his mother had been raped. By a Jew."

She sighed. "So that made him think Jews were evil. Ok, but I'm still not seeing how this struck a nerve for you. I mean, maybe it's a nerve I don't know about, but if so, you're going to have to fill me in."

"His father beat the crap out of his mother for the affair, but the kid thought she had been raped. He tried to protect her for a while. Then, when he was an adult, and the cancer came . . . he and his father both blamed it on her allowing herself to be touched 'down there' by a Jew."

Alex took a moment to reflect on that, then nodded. "She got hit by a horrible illness . . . and they believed it was her own fault?"

"Yeah."

"Your mom?" she asked hesitantly, not sure how much leeway he would allow her in her questioning.

He moved his eyes back to his beer bottle and nodded almost imperceptibly. "Yeah. My dad . . . he couldn't - or wouldn't - understand that it wasn't her fault. He liked to take it out on her."

"So this case brought back memories."

He glanced up at her, trying to read her expression, then looked away again. "I got caught up in the storytelling, you know? For a few seconds, he . . . he represented all that kind of thinking, all the blame my dad . . ."

She scooted closer to him and put a hand on his knee. "Bobby, you didn't hit him. The worst that you did was put the fear of god into a guy who had a bad habit of killing innocent people. I don't see much harm in that."

"I know." He shrugged. "I just . . ." He finished the sentence with a wordless shudder, then sighed. "You know I don't lose control of myself. And I don't like to remember."

"I know you don't. But," she went on, leaning against his arm in an attempt to share some comforting warmth, "we've all done it. You've seen me flip out. You could have taken a serious whack at the guy, and you didn't."

"I know," he said again.

"Why'd you take off tonight?" she pressed on gently.

He shook his head. "Angry. At myself, mostly. Deakins wouldn't have known what to do with me, and Bishop, well, I obviously freaked her out enough as it is. So I just . . . went."

That was true enough. "Ok. You feel any better now?" she asked, patting his knee again.

He nodded, although he didn't look particularly happy about admitting it to her. "I'm sorry you, you know, had to come after me."

"Bobby," she admonished mildly. "You should have called me to begin with. You know I'm here if you get upset or need someone to talk to."

Bobby, his eyes on the hand she had on his leg, was was silent for almost a minute as he thought about that, and then, without warning, he jumped to his feet. "I should go. It's late."

"Bobby!" Reflexively, she tried to copy his motion and jump to her feet, only to be foiled by the weight of her belly, which pulled her back down with a yelp.

The sound pulled him out of his thoughts, and he whirled around in time to catch her by the arm to keep her from going down entirely. "Eames!"

Thankful for the support, she braced her free hand on his arm and pulled herself up again. "Sorry. You'd think I'd be used to it by now."

"Are you ok?"

She kept her hold on him and considered that for a second, then looked up at him and nodded sheepishly. "I am. Are you? If you're not careful, I'll dislocate your shoulder or something one of these days."

"Nah," he said with a dismissive shake of his head, moving his grip to her upper arms instead of releasing her. "You're not heavy enough for that."

She snorted and looked down at her belly. "With this load? You bet your ass I am."

He just shook his head and changed the subject. "I should go."

"Yeah?" she asked skeptically, looking down at his hands on her arms. "You're going to have to let go of me for that. And you don't have to if you don't want to."

"I don't have to let go of you?" he asked, staring at her in surprise.

She grinned. "Well, I referring to you leaving, but now that you mention it, no, you don't have to let go, either, if you don't want.

"I . . . don't?"

Tipping her head back, she studied his face, taking in the unusual wideness of his eyes and the lowering of his eyebrows. He looked like he was trying to figure out whether to be pleased or uncomfortable with that revelation, she thought. "Bobby?" she said cautiously, not sure what to make of his behavior.

"I, uh . . . how have you been feeling lately?"

"What, with the baby?" She looked down at her belly, then back up at him. "Fine. I'd have mentioned it to you if something was wrong." There was still something in his eyes that she didn't like, something that looked altogether too close to self-loathing for her comfort. "Bobby," she said, lifting a hand to touch his cheek. "It's not the end of the world just because you lost control of yourself for a few minutes."

He froze, giving her a look that she would have sworn evidenced guilt. "It's dangerous for me to lose control of myself to that degree. I . . ." He stopped as her eyes caught and held his, then he very deliberately blinked and turned his head away in an attempt to dislodge her hand. "It's a fine line."

"Between what, being perfect and being human?" she chided, following his movement with her hand and stroking her thumb over the stubble on his jaw. "Give me a break. It's nice to see you drop your guard once in a while, quite frankly."

"My guard . . ." He paused, taking a deep breath and reaching a hand up to pull her hand away from his face. "My guard is there for a reason."

With a sigh, she took a step back and allowed him to push her hand away. "Sorry. Sometimes I forget that you prefer to keep everyone at arm's length."

"That's not what I -" he began defensively, then stopped himself. "I do it to protect you - everyone. Not to keep you at arm's length."

"Protect me from what, Bobby?"

"From me," he said with an awkward shrug. "I should really go, Eames."

She just watched for a second as he started backing away again. "I wish you would have warned me that going on leave would get me shut out of your life. At least then I'd have been prepared for it when you stopped confiding in me."

"Alex, no," he blurted before he could catch himself. "It's not . . . I'm not trying to . . ."

"It's fine," she interrupted quietly as he started to open the apartment door. "Just let me say something, ok?"

He paused on the threshold and turned back to look at her curiously. "Ok."

She offered him a small smile as she crossed to the door, closing the distance between them. "I want you to keep one thing in mind for me when I'm not around and you catch a bad case, or you have a bad day with Bishop, or whatever."

"Ok . . ."

Pleased that he hadn't retreated, she replaced her hand against his cheek for a moment, then slid it around to the nape of his neck to force him to bend closer to her so she could whisper in his ear, "I'm still your partner, ok? I still worry. I still . . ." She paused, searching for the right phrasing, then sighed and shook her head, moving her fingers around from his neck to his chin. "I still care about you," she murmured, brushing her lips over his impulsively. "A lot."

"Eames, I -"

She shook her head again, this time with a slight smile on her face, and gave him a gentle push across the threshold. "Doesn't matter, Bobby. Just keep that in mind for me, that's all I'm asking."

Stunned by the events of the past few seconds, he could only nod dumbly.

"Good," she said, taking the nod as an agreement. "Good night, Bobby."

By the time he thought of something to say in response, the door was closed and he could hear the sound of her engaging the chain on the inside of it. "Good night," he murmured vacantly, then smiled at the door, shook his head, and turned to head for the stairs that would take him out of her building and back into the real world.

Fin