I sigh as I watch him pace up and down the length of the small interview room, his hand intertwined in his ruffled hair as he tries to fit the pieces of the puzzle together so we have a picture of the case. He groans and thumps his head on the table, muttering,

"No… It's not right. He had to have killed her before he had afternoon tea... He had to."

Major Cases golden boy is starting to tarnish, I'm sure of it. He's been like this ever since I've been partnered with him, even before that according to Captain Deakins.

He's been like this ever since Eames was killed, and I really can't blame him. I'd be this way too if my partner died in my arms like she did…

It was late one December as I recall, snow coated the city like a freezing blanket, and Eames and Goren had been called out to a robbery come murder down in Manhattan. The uniforms that were first on the scene said that they'd searched the building from top to bottom before anyone else got there, that it was safe to let other officers into view the crime scene, but Goren's never believed him, and neither has anyone else I've ever met.

The two of them walked into the room, eyes quickly scanning across the three bodies that littered the floor, their blood staining the carpet a gaudy crimson. Reports say that Goren pulled his gun, his senses telling him that there was something wrong. By then he'd already lost sight of Eames, who had wondered up the hall after a noise she heard, assuming that it was another officer. Goren had started to walk after her, but was too late to catch her before the shot was fired, too late to save her life.

I've seen footage of him from the security cameras set up in the building; his face pales, and he softly calls her name, a scared look flitting across his face before he sprints up the hallway, the cameras loosing sight of him for a moment before he reappears and sees her, his gun slowly slipping from his hand and falling to the floor with a noisy clatter.

"Alex?" He says numbly, hand running through his hair, screaming out for backup before he falls to his knees next to her limp body, shaking as he feels for a pulse on her wrist, then her neck and upon not finding one he holds his hand over the hole in her face, starting to give her CPR. It's three minutes before someone finds him, tears running down his face and his hand clamped around hers, just like a child. I've seen those three minutes of footage, it was one of the hardest things I ever had to look at it my life, and I used to work homicide. He wouldn't give up; his hands still pumped at her chest, trying to get her heart to beat again, his lips still pushed at hers forcing air into her lungs.

The officer had to pull him away from her body, struggling with the burly man as he desperately tried to get back to her, screaming, "No! Alex, wake up! WAKE UP!"

His voice filled the building and her blood stained his clothes, his tie dripping on the floor, the concrete outside as they resort to pinning him to the ground – the only way they can keep him from getting back inside to her. It's another five minutes before an ambulance arrives, the medics walking in and out quickly, wheeling her body, inserted in a black plastic body bag, into the back of the ambulance. They say that he screamed like a wounded animal when he saw the bag, thrashing on the ground and pushing several officers off of him, making a break for the back of the ambulance in the hope that it wasn't really his partner, that it was another body in that bag. It wasn't though; deep in his heart he knew that. He must have.

My eyes flicker, and Goren's standing in front of me, hands on hips, the look of a stern high school teacher about him.

"You weren't listening to a word I said, were you McGinnis?" He says rather angrily, glaring down at me. I smile and reply, "I was thinking."

He stoops down so he's a little shorter and asks, a blast of warm breath coming from his mouth, "What were you thinking about?"

"That he did have morning tea before he killed her because there were fresh dishes in the sink. Either he had someone over for breakfast, which he denied, or he had morning tea."

Goren smiles, the only time I've ever seen him do it, and congratulates me.

"You're learning. Slowly, but you're learning."

FIN