Like any other night in the last couple of years, Alex, from her office, Looked at the people leaving for the night, until every single light in the bullpen of her unit was turned off.

Well past ten pm, she was the only one left, and she knew all too well why - and it wasn't because she was the boss or because she was a workaholic.

Simply, she had no one to come back home to, she was all alone in that big apartment of hers.

During the day, she often looked at the people working outside her office, especially on slow days. Even with what they saw, with their though line of work, they still laughed and smiled, they chit-chatted talking about the more and the less, about families, children, grandchildren, spouses...

Alex, instead, didn't smile any longer: she had stopped doing so many years before. She guessed it was because it wasn't like she still had any reason to actually smile for.

She envied "her people". Not with malice or resentment, but she really did. It was like some kind of longing for a missing piece of her heart and her life. But every time she used to think such a thing, she would mentally slap herself. After all, it wasn't like she hadn't known how she would have ended up when signing for the job.

And yet, every night she had to turn her light off and come back to an empty apartment, she sighed, crying silent tears and envying everyone else.

Her team, because they all had someone to come back to.

Mike Logan, because he had been brave enough to leave, and smart enough to know when the time was right for retiring.

And, as much as she hated and resented him, she even envied Bobby, because he had been able to fully and really move on after they had left their jobs in Major Crimes.

She took a glass statue from her desk and thought about throwing it against the wall, but then she decided not to. The statue wasn't responsible of her sorry excuse of a life, and besides, it had nothing to do with her former partner.

Alex shed a couple of tears and laughed hysterically, feeling a bit silly. Yes, she was alone, but she had wanted this job and she was loving it. Given the chance, she would accept again and again. She didn't regret this decision, she regretted just few choices she had done in her life, but wasn't anyone like that? Everyone wondered buts and what ifs, and now that she was over fifty she was simply starting to feel the pressure of loneliness and the desire to have someone to come back to, to talk to at the end of the day with, someone she could cry with and that would allow her to be scared and listen to her.

Yeah, she was getting old. That was all.

She turned the light off and closed the door, and playing with her apartment keys she wondered if getting a rink at O'Malley's, but then she decided not to. Drinking in such a state of mind wasn't really advisable, not with her family history of alcohol abuse. Besides, it wasn't like there was anyone to drive her back home- but maybe she could get a shot of something once back home. To help her falling asleep, and stopping thinking about how miserable she felt.

So, at the end, she took the usual road, and entered in the same empty apartment, as alone as every other day.

She didn't see a pair of eyes looking at her from afar, begging a God they didn't fully believe in to not being discover.

Robert Goren wasn't a vain man, and yet he didn't have any trouble admitting that, at over 50 years old, he was still damn charming. He still had his way with women, just a smile, or maybe even just a look, and his prey was lost. Sometimes he didn't even mean to seduce them. Many women seemed to see something in him, and they decided that he was going to be taken care of. Until few years back it would have been fun, but now the thrill of a new adventure between the sheets of his bed had lost any kind of fascination.

For a while, everything had been good after he had left Major Crimes. At first he hadn't regretted that decision, but now he wasn't so sure any longer. Yes, he enjoyed his job with the military, but sometimes (actually, often) he felt like it lacked something.

And, as much as he hated to admit it, that something was actually a "someone"- Eames.

Alexandra "Alex" Eames. His partner, his friend, his confident, for over a decade. Alex Eames, who had moved up in the ranks after he accepted this job, leaving her behind. Alex Eames, the very reason he had left his old job to begin with, despite his "I left because the Head of Detectives hated me, so I decided to switch job instead of being fired from the Police a second time" mantra.

But the truth was another: just before he left, Dr. Gyson had asked if he loved Eames, but Goren had never answered with a yes or no. Fact was, a simple question had scared him to death, more than a gun to his head ever did. Because admitting that he loved Alex meant accepting that she could hurt him beyond repair. But he had gotten to a point he wasn't so sure any longer that he could keep handling having her as a friend and partner alone. And yet, he couldn't have her as his lover either. Alex was just… it was just that he really didn't know why he didn't want to have her. He just knew he couldn't.

So, as the valiant knight in shining armor that he was, he did the only thing he could think of.

He took the coward's way out.

He accepted a job offer no one knew about, and like any good coward he took off one weekend leaving the pleasure of announcing his departure to his captain. He had even deciding to stop answering his own phone, but at the end it had been a pointless decision, as Alex had to be so mad with him that she had never tried to reach out. Which, in turn, as stupid as it was, had driven him mad too -but it wasn't like his own mind had ever been too logical when his life and his feelings were concerned. So, to get back at her, he had decided to enjoy life to the fullest. After all, his salary was higher, his position better, the women he met weren't murderous bitches, he liked his job and , strange but true, his coworkers and even his boss actually appreciated him.

In short: Robert Goren's new life was just perfect.

Until, it wasn't any longer.

People always seemed to assume that, if a major crisis or change was to happen in a human's life, it would have happened at a round number -30, 40, 50…- but he had reached and surpassed his 50th birthday like it was nothing. It had been only in the last few months that he had reached a retarded middle life crisis. Only, he didn't start wearing leather, nor he bought a motorcycle.

Nope. Robert Goren started wondering what ifs and buts.

He was even starting having problems with the ladies, as every relationship he had been since had felt empty and meaningless. In short, at 52, Robert Goren was a lone man with a job he liked but a lot of regrets. And if he had ever doubted himself in the past… there was no comparison with today's situation.

"Are you all right, detective?" the blonde, giggling bartender asked him with seductive eyes. She was way younger than him – late 20s, early 30s, probably – and yet she was eating him alive. Sweet thing had a crowd of adoring men at her feet, and yet she had eyes only for him. Daddy Issues.

"My partner's not here" he answered without explaining blonde that he hadn't been a detective for few years.

"Well, then you must really like him." she giggled, serving him another shot of tequila. Yes, Blondie really wanted him in her bed that badly.

"Her" Bobby answered with a faraway look, full of tenderness and longing. "I really like her."

Blondie made a sound- a grunt or a giggle, Bobby wasn't sure – and moved to another fifty something costumer. Bobby just chuckled, and once paid, he left without a second thought.

He wondered the streets of his old neighborhood, inhaling scents he thought forgotten, and with every scent, it came a memory. And somehow, they were all connected to Alex.

God. How could he have missed her so much without never realizing it?

He shook his head and he kept walking, seeing her in every detail, in every corner, every shop…

Until he saw her. The real her.

Alex was unlocking her door, and she looked older, more tired, and as soon as he saw the dark welcoming her back home, he realized why. It was the same feeling he had been going through since leaving. After all, years before, he had left because he didn't want for neither of them to be miserable, and yet it was exactly how they had both ended up.

And now… it was time to rectify this.

Robert Goren didn't know what to do. He hadn't talked with his former partner in over two years, and yet, here he was, in front of her apartment thinking about how to explain himself- and what he was supposed to explain to begin with. He wasn't even fully sure about what he really wanted from Eames: friendship. being her working partner again, love, sex? He wasn't sure himself, but he hoped that seeing her again would have helped clearing his foggy mind.

He just hated that he was scared. In his life, he had been so brave to be called stupid and foolish. He had been a marine, and a New York Finest for so long that he had probably forgotten what fear actually was... hell, he had faced so many criminals, went undercover so many times that he wasn't supposed to be scared. And yet, this was the only thing he had ever been scared of in his whole life: his heart. He knew he didn't want to suffer- and that was why he had left, among the other things - but did it really make sense? He wasn't even really trying, he was already giving up. He wasn't so sure any longer that no heartache was better than feeling numb. But he had to do something, and quickly, if he wanted to change things.

He lifted his fist and knocked, one, two, three times, and then he waited. He knew she was home, as he had seen her, and he guessed she was just on the other side of the door. She was probably looking at him through the peephole, asking herself if he was worth the sweat and the troubles, and why she would talk with him after over two years of silence and his refusal to explain his sudden departure.

Closing his eyes, he took a big breath, and sat on the concrete in front of the door, leaning against it with his big frame. He could almost imagine Alex on the other side, mimicking his position in reverse.

"I'm not going to apologize, Alex. Because trust me, we both needed this. But..." he took another big breath, and run an hand through his greying hair. "But I think that... I miss you. And... that's all that I wanted to tell you, I guess. So..." He breathed in and out once again, and then he stood, ready to leave. He had already taken a couple of steps when he heard the door opening at his back.

Alex was simply looking at his back. She wasn't talking. She didn't know what to say, because he was right. It was how she felt too. She liked her new life, she didn't regret her new position as lieutenant. She just missed him. He had engulfed her whole life for so long that she wasn't sure how she had survived without him for those few last years. She guessed she had merely existed.

He turned, and he smiled at her, looking, apologizing, at his feet, suddenly shy and out of words. Alex looked a bit older, but was as good as always. She was exactly as he remembered her, just like she had been the last time they had met.

"You want to get some coffee?" She blushed at her sudden affirmation, gulping down a mouthful of saliva. Men she didn't know- or that she knew casually - usually red her requests as need for sex (and they were usually were right), but right now she didn't want to have sex with her former partner. It was... It was Bobby. And even if she had always been attracted to him to a certain degree, she couldn't do casual sex with him. And was she ever to embark in a sexual relationship with him... well, there was still a lot to talk about, a lot of ground to cover. And, ok, they knew each other better than their own families, but still they had never dated. That had never kissed. Nope. She wasn't going to have sex with her former partner.

Well, not that night, at least.

"I'm not sure your...partner..." boyfriend seemed so childish for people their age " would like for me to be here at such an hour..."

Alex shook his head, smiling a bit. He remembered that smile. He had missed it. "There is no one. I am all alone."

She opened her door furthermore, and he entered, and when she closed it at their back, there was just one thing he knew for sure: he didn't know what he wanted from her. He just knew he wanted her. Because he had missed her. And he hadn't fully realized it until now.

But now, they both have time and the chance to figure things out. They had time. And they had each other.