A/N Okay, so I'm not expecting this to follow canon much. But I do expect it to be a fun ride!

Swirl

Detective Robert Goren was down. He blinked in the dark. Looking up he could see lights, or maybe stars, but they seemed to be in constant motion, like someone had bumped them and caused them to swirl.

Bobby looked at the lights until he felt sick to his stomach. He couldn't make sense of anything. There was something cold and hard pressing against his shoulders and the back of his head. It hurt.

Somehow he managed to put together the idea that he had to move to make it stop hurting. Bobby summoned all of his strength and tried to roll to one side, but all he managed to do was make the lights swirl faster. He squeezed his eyes shut and swallowed hard. He gagged and coughed and realized all at once that he had a pounding headache.

Goren tried hard to remember what happened. There was some kind of memory but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't quite get hold of it. He opened his eyes again, saw the lights swirling overhead, and choked.

"Where the hell is he?" Eames demanded of the men in the room. Every last one of them looked away: out the window, at the floor, at the pockmarks in the ceiling.

She sighed heavily and shook her head. "You asked for him to help. You brought him in and now…?!"

Captain Ross arrived behind her. "Someone care to fill me in?" he asked the group.

"They sent Bobby out alone, and now they've lost contact with him," Alex said.

"We didn't send him alone. He was wired. He was supposed to wait until Martinez got there, but… it looks like he didn't."

"What about the wire?"

"Malfunctioned?" Another man said with a shrug.

Ross looked at each person in the group. "I need to see your Captain," he said finally. One man got up to lead him to the Captain's office, and Eames was on Ross' heels. He spun around and held up a hand to stop her. "Eames," he said firmly. "Wait for me."

She felt like she'd just taken a body blow. Alex stopped hard, and watched Captain Ross walk away. With another sigh, she turned and walked back toward the front door, stopping to glare at the men of the 17th on the way.

"Well?"

"They've got three units and two teams scouring the neighborhood. If he's there, they'll find him. If not, they'll pick up his trail."

"And meanwhile?" She asked, irritated.

"I know it's hard, but you have to sit back… wait."

She stared at him, agape. "He's my partner!" It sounded like a plea.

"This is their turf, Eames. They've got informants, they know what goes on in the back alleys. We need to let them lead the search."

Every fiber of her being was wired. If he had been anyone but her Captain, he would have gotten an earful, and maybe more. Alex bit her tongue. She spun around and walked away.

Everything was swirling. Bobby opened his eyes, but he couldn't make heads nor tails of anything he saw. It was a blurred mess of color and light. He couldn't move. He tried to call out for help, but he didn't recognize the sound that came from his lips.

Alex was doing her best to keep her mind occupied by completing overdue paperwork. It was a struggle. She kept fixating on Bobby's empty chair, and then she would have to force herself to shake off the worry and attend to business again.

She was halfway through a paragraph when her phone buzzed hard against the desktop. She snatched it up.

"Eames." She listened, and a hopeful terror rose up inside her. "I'll be right there."

It sounded like someone was playing a game of Pong at the end of a long hallway. The steady blip came without fail. Bobby started to listen for the next beat. He was not disappointed.

Slowly, his mind started to activate. He realized that Pong was an outdated game, that it made no sense that someone would be playing it. He wondered what the sound really was. Bobby tried to turn his head toward the sound.

"Bobby?" a voice said. The voice was soft, and familiar. He opened his eyes, and her face, multiplied four times, swirled before him.

"Eames," he tried to say. Something similar escaped his lips.

"Oh, God, Bobby, I'm so glad you're awake."

Her words didn't make sense. He only heard a few of them. But her voice was comforting, and even with the swirling, her face was familiar.

"Bobby, can you hear me?"

"Eames," he said again, and this time the whispered word sounded right. He felt her hand covering his, and his eyes rolled back, the lids closing.

Alex Eames breathed a sigh. He was getting better. The staff said so, and now he had finally come to, and even better, he'd spoken to her. Bobby wasn't out of the woods yet, but he was getting better, and for that she was grateful.

"What happened to him?" Ross asked, his calm demeanor not betraying the deep anger he felt inside.

"Tox screen showed Pancuronium Bromide in his system."

"What the hell is that?"

The detective squirmed under the stern look on Ross' face. "It's a paralytic. It looks like they knocked him in the head, and were keeping him sedated for some reason." The detective shifted his weight on his feet. "The doctors think he was kept like that for close to six hours."

"What else do they say?"

"He's damn lucky his heart's still beating. His autonomic functions are still working, and that's some kind of miracle, given that he was under the influence of the drug without proper monitoring."

"What did they hit him with?"

"Blunt object, thin. Maybe a piece of rebar."

"Find any rebar in the area where he was abducted?"

"Not yet, sir."

"I want to know every move he made from the time you lost contact with him. If you guys can't figure it out, I'll loan you a team from Major Case."

"Don't worry, Captain Ross. We'll get to the bottom of things."

"Miles," Ross called. "How did they administer the drug?"

"Injection point in his side and another one in his left arm."

"Any chance there's a blonde woman involved?"

"Sir?"

"Look up Nicole Wallace. Add her to your suspects."

"Yes, Captain."

Ross watched Detective Miles scurry away and quietly entered Goren's hospital room. Eames was at his side, holding his hand and staring at the veins that were pushing up under his skin. Her thumb traced along one of them slowly.

"Any change?" Ross asked.

Alex nodded. "He came to. Recognized me."

"That's good," Ross said, somewhat surprised.

She looked over at him. "It's… hard… to see him like this," she said quietly.

Ross frowned and nodded at her. In a soft voice, he told her what he had just learned from Miles.

"Wallace?!" Alex said, shocked. They hadn't heard from her in over a year. Everyone thought she was dead. Everyone, except Bobby and Alex. She looked down at her partner and her grip on his hand tightened. If it was Wallace, they were damned lucky Bobby was still alive.

"Did you contact his family yet?"

She shook her head. "His mother… she's, uhm… emotionally… fragile. She may not be able to handle it. And his brother… I don't even know if Bobby knows how to reach him."

"You may want to reconsider telling his mother. If she's emotionally fragile… and he doesn't…"

"He's going to recover," Eames said firmly.

Ross looked around. He knew Eames wanted to believe that. He wanted to believe it, too. But the truth was that Goren was in the ICU. And even though he had shown some improvement, anything was possible. Still, Eames was Goren's ICE, and the decision was hers. He nodded and gave her a mumbled goodbye, asking to be kept in the loop.

When he woke in the night, Bobby was alone. The room was still illuminated by recessed lights near the wall. He looked around once, and then again, and did not see her.

His heartbeat quickened, and he called out, but no one heard him. Bobby tried to quell his panic. He was in a hospital, he knew that. He knew that someone was looking out for him. He thought for a moment, and remembered the call button that they always have available in the hospital. He moved his hands, searching for the device or the wire or anything that would do the job. He found a thick cable, but he couldn't seem to reach the end of it. He tried tugging on it, but he still had no luck. His heart rate increased again.

"You're awake?" She asked, breaking the terrifying silence. Bobby's eyes shot in the direction of the voice, and he saw Alex walking closer, with a smile on her face.

"Eames," he said, and took a few deep breaths, trying to calm down.

"What's the matter?" She asked him, seeing right away the odd expression on his face.

"C-couldn't find the… the… to call the nurse…"

"You need the nurse?" Alex asked, tugging on the cable and lifting the remote to her hands.

He shook his head. "J-just… I don't like to be alone."

Alex felt a pang at his words. Her expression softened and she patted his hand. "I'm sorry, Bobby. I had to go find something to eat, I was starved. I thought you would sleep while I was gone."

He nodded, accepting her explanation. With the problem resolved, he relaxed, resting his head deeper into the pillow. He remained alert, though. He was tired, but not sleepy.

"Bobby, do you remember what happened? How you ended up here?"

He licked his lips and thought, then shook his head. "I was wired. What happened to the wire?"

Alex sighed. "We don't know yet. And that alley was about as blind as an alley can get. Besides a vague description from a half-blind senior citizen on the 11th floor, nobody saw anything. No security cameras, no passers-by, nothing." She watched him rub his fingers together, in thought. "Sorry. You shouldn't worry about any of that. How are you feeling?"

"I don't… know…" he moved his hand, frowned at the effort, and dropped it back to the mattress. "Can't… too weak…"

"Okay, Bobby. It's okay," she told him. "You're getting stronger. Give it some time."

He looked into her eyes, and was reassured. He was weak, but Eames wouldn't lie to him. He must be getting better. He closed his eyes for a moment, trying to ease the pain in his head.

"Bobby?" she asked, concerned.

"Head. Hurts."

"Yeah, you got hit pretty hard." She let go of his hand and started to move away. "I should let you rest," she said, and he reached out for her again.

"N-no," he protested. "Stay with me." He managed to catch her hand with his, and his eyes were pleading.

"Okay, Bobby. I'll stay."

He closed his eyes, but kept a tight grip on her hand. "I need to know you're here," he explained.

"Okay," she said quietly, stroking her fingers against his hand.