Title: His Watson
Author: raz0r.girl
Archive: just let me know: raz0rDOTgirlATyahooDOTcom
Rating: K
Synopsis: She knows she's no sidekick … and so does he. B/A friendship.
Disclaimer: Dick Wolf, NBC, et.al. own 'em. I just dig 'em.
A/N: I haven't forgotten the last chapter of the 5 Gorens fic. I'm just stuck. What was supposed to be a vignette has turned into this massive thing with an actual plot and no ending in sight. So I have to come up with a different AU scenario for Alex (and maybe finish the one I started as a stand-alone fic). In the meantime, here's a short I've been thinking about for a while now. As always, feedback is appreciated.

Bobby watched as Alex attacked her paperwork, assaulting each page with a ferocity that almost made him cringe. They were working late, finishing up the tedious but necessary bureaucratic part of their job. The case had been grueling and very public. In addition to the normal challenges of their work, they'd had to deal with the press, something neither of them liked to do outside of controlled circumstances with contacts they knew well. They'd run into a passel of reporters on their way back to One PP that afternoon, and his partner had been in a foul mood ever since.

"C'mon, Eames," he said. "We need a break."

She looked up at him, surprised.

"Bobby, this stack of paperwork represents so many dead trees that I wouldn't be surprised if, by the time we finish it, we find a hippie's handcuffed himself to it in protest."

Bobby chuckled.

"If that's the case, both the forms and the handcuffed hippie will be here when we get back. Right now, I'm buying you dinner."

She sighed and put down her pen.

"Fine," she said, as she got up and put on her jacket.

They didn't talk as they rode the elevators down to the first floor and exited the building to walk to a nearby diner where they often caught a quick meal in the midst of their never-ending overtime.

As they slid into a booth, a familiar waitress brought them both coffee and a pile of extra sugar packets for Alex. They placed their orders without looking at the menus.

"What's going on?" Bobby asked as Alex tore open the sugar one pack at a time and poured it into her mug.

She shrugged and said, "Sometimes reporters just get on my nerves."

"It was the Watson comment, wasn't it?" he said, referring to a question one of the reporters had called out—something about how she felt being the Watson to his Holmes.

She stopped for a moment and looked up at him, annoyed, then went back to her sugar ritual.

"You know, it's not exactly an insult," he said, looking at her with his head cocked to the side.

She glared at him and he smiled.

"Really, it's not. People's impressions of Watson being a silly sidekick comes from some of the movies based on the Holmes novels and stories. But in the books, Watson's quite capable, and in many ways, much more well rounded than Holmes."

"How?" she asked, looking at him with a bit more interest.

"Let me put it this way," he said, holding up his hands in front of him as he punctuated his words with broad gestures, "in calling you a 'Watson,' someone is saying that you're brave, smart, and at the top of your field. You'd be a decorated war hero who was injured in service of God and country, and you'd have a way with the ladies…"

Her eyebrow quirked at that.

"I've seen the way Rodriguez looks at you when she thinks no one's looking," he said without missing a beat. "Definitely a way with the ladies."

She shook her head, and smiled. "Go on," she said before taking a sip of her coffee.

"You'd be far more socially adept than your brooding, quirky partner. And you'd have mad fighting skills…"

"Robert Goren, did you just say 'mad fighting skills'?"

"You'd be a skilled marksman…"

"Uh-uh. I'm still on the 'mad fighting skills' part."

"Look, I'm just stating the facts here."

"You know I'm going to have to tease you about that forever."

He grinned and looked down at the table.

"You'd also be an incredible friend and equal who makes his colleague's life far better than it would ever be without him. You'd make him a better man."

It was a long moment before she quietly said, "Thank you, Bobby."

He looked up and held her gaze.

"There's nothing to thank," he said. "It's true. People just need to read more."

She nodded, then said, "Just don't think this means you can start saying, 'Elementary, my dear Eames' at crime scenes."

"Actually, Holmes never said that in the books. He said, 'Elementary,' and 'My dear Watson,' but he never put them together…"

He trailed off when he noticed her rolling her eyes with amusement.

"Sorry," he said.

"Don't be," she said. "It's who you are, and that's fine with me."

xXx