Summary: How did Bobby go from so protective of Alex to so distant in between Siren Call and War at Home? Takes place in the car right at the end of Siren Call.

Disclaimer: Characters and show are not mine.

He wasn't all right. And he knew she knew it on some level. She was simply too raw herself to press him. He knew it had cost her to ask because she was afraid of how he would respond. He knew full well that for the first time in their partnership, he was her anchor. He knew because she cared so deeply for him, she had asked, and asked sincerely. But he also knew she was counting on him to lie to her; to help her pretend that everything was okay.

That was the socially acceptable way to get through life - ignore the pain we don't know how to handle and hope that it would heal with time. And he didn't judge her for it. Because he also knew there was something else she was deliberately ignoring between them that was becoming increasingly difficult to deny. Something that made sense to protect by whatever means necessary. And, again, he did not hold that against her.

What would have become of their partnership if she'd paid any attention to the first sparks of interest from him? She, who had tried to bury that part of herself along with her husband - how would she have reacted if she had let herself notice her partner's affection? It was natural that there be moments; a practically unavoidable situation considering the long hours and intense circumstances. She had been right to avoid seeing it because it hadn't meant a damn thing.

Compared to how he cared for her now, those first pricks of his feelings were juvenile at best. No different than those of the shop owner on the corner of her block that always gave her an extra shot of vanilla in her mocha.

Compared to then, what was happening now - what was raging in his very blood, this - now - scared him.

No, he wasn't okay. Because he couldn't think past her now. And if there was one thing he had besides his sheer size, it was his ability to reason, dammit.

Under no circumstances could that be jeopardized; Could not be, and yet, where her life was concerned, his ability to think rationally and strategically, was gone.

He would lose it - he would - there was simply no way around that truth; if she died - if she was murdered right in goddamn front of him... There would be no way back for him.

Somewhere in a deeply buried part of his mind, Bobby cursed silently; he cursed and remembered the air in that room - the thickness. He had known it was wrong. He had known - but as soon as they'd stepped into the room they had set the game in motion - by the time he'd smelled the desperation in the air, it had been too late to turn back.

He had closed the door - let the nail click and turned to meet the challenge head on.

He had a healthy fear of guns, a healthy understanding of what a gun could do - but he was smart and he understood people and he could talk his way out of anything.

Before.

He had been able to before she had died in his mind that morning... Before he had found the body in the back of her own car at One PP garage. He'd guessed then - guessed far far back in the reaches of his mind that he wouldn't recover when he pulled that canvas back to face her. To face her and his failure to protect her.

Something had snapped in him during that vicious joke - like Humpty Dumpty up on that tragic wall. Something had cracked and nothing and no one could put him together again.

He wasn't all right. He played strong for her, he played the societal game for her and pretended that the world hadn't shifted beneath his feet. Pretended that all she needed was counseling and a few weeks and all he needed was her.

He'd seen it before in suspects, that hungry look in their eye when they talked about the object of their obsession. He felt it in his own gaze when he looked at her, but he knew that if she saw hint she would ignore it. She would ignore it for his sake and for her own.

There was nothing to be done. All the king's horses, all the king's men couldn't change the way his world and his mind had gone blank when the gun had been introduced into the game.

He had been aware of his responsibility - he had to talk, he had to think and work and squeeze their way out of this. It was on him. It was on him to protect his partner and, whatever the cost, he would not fail this time.

All he could see was the gun. The fear in that room; the emotion was too thick to wade through, but he'd gotten his mouth moving. Like he was swimming through tar he had talked, worked it through in his nearly paralyzed mind for her, for them because it was on him.

First, he had needed her out of the room, out of range in the same way that he had needed air in his lungs. He couldn't think past her. Her fear, so close to the surface with the PTS, his fear for her, his fear of what he felt for her... it froze him.

Somehow they had gotten out of that house both unharmed, if not exactly whole. And she had urged him to spend time with his mom. Because she cared... and because she cared she was asking a question now that she knew he wouldn't answer.

"Are you all right?"

He wasn't all right. He had to take the shambles that was left of his boundaries, his carefully defined understanding of their relationship and salvage what he could. He had to reshape it for the sake of their partnership and their friendship into something workable.

This truth, this burden that he knew was between them had to be buried and numbed - another sad skill he had acquired in his lifetime.

But Bobby knew that the present would never be enough now. It wasn't about all the ways she stood beside him anymore. It was how she was open to him in the same way that she was closed to everyone else.

He looked over at her, knowing she was busying her mind with the scenery and the tasks to come, but when he looked over at her, he saw his life. And he didn't know what the hell to do about it.