Ulterior Motives

Somebody Give That Kid a Granola Bar

By LMR

BA fluff

K

Disclaimer: Dick Wolf told me I could have the characters to keep if I promised I wouldn't always be making them go at like prom dates at the end of every story. Forget that.

The nephew's name is Andrew (Andy) this time. Poor kid is having an identity crisis because he's been named about twenty different things.

Summary: Eames's nephew comes to 1 PP one day and decides to tell his new buddy Bobby all about what his Mommy and Auntie Alex talked about last weekend.

He's a three year old, and he never stops rambling about completely pointless things. But enough about my partner, Alex thought. Where did my nephew and his mommy get to? Her car was in the shop, and her sister was taking her back to their house for a weekend. Goren had offered to drive her back to her place, but she hadn't been overly thrilled with that idea. She bit her lip. Okay, wrong way to phrase that. Suffice it to say, it was a bad idea. Everyone wanted to meet her nephew anyway, especially Goren. He was so good with children, and she knew that he was pained by the fact that the mental illness in his family prevented him from having a child in good concience. He had too good of a heart, was too selfless to put a child through that out of his own desire to have one. Schizophrenia, manic-depression, major depressive disorder: these were things you don't give your worst enemy, let alone your own precious child. Poor guy.

"I'm ready to go," her sister said. "But your partner wanted to play for a minute."

"Oh, good, they should be at about the same age level."

Her sister shook her head. "You are so mean to that guy."

Eames shrugged. "I'll quit insulting him when he quits laughing." she pointed out.

"But he can't hear you," her sister reminded her.

"Well, I can't get out of practice. I'll use that one on him later."

"You sound like Beatrice and Bened-"

"Don't," she wasn't using a joking tone anymore.

Her sister realized that the comment had been a rather thoughtless one. "I'm sorry." Alex shrugged again.

"Hi, Andy, I'm Bobby." He was sitting on the floor looking at a beautiful little boy. "I'm friends with your Auntie Alex."

"Hi."

"Whatcha' got there?" he pointed to the toy Andy was holding.

"Car."

"Ooh, neat, I love cars. You, too?" He nodded dutifully. "Show me how it goes," Bobby said eagerly.

Andy sat and drove it around the floor a bit. "Brrrrrummmm," he said, by way of explanation.

"Cool." And he sincerely meant it.

"I'm happy. Auntie Alex is coming over for..." he stuck his little tongue out of his mouth in concentration. "This many days," he indicated three. "I love her lots. We have fun. She's my Tummy Mommie," he added proudly. "I like when she comes."

"That'll be fun."

"Hmmm. I hope she and Mommy don't have a Discussion again."

"A Discussion, huh? What's that?"

He looked up at Bobby grouchily. "You're Bobby, aren't you?"

"Yeah."

"Well, then you know what a 'scussion is."

"Why's that?"

He shrugged. "Auntie Alex says you know everything."

Bobby smiled in spite of himself. "Are you sure she didn't say I'm a know-it-all? That's what she tells me."

"Nope, you know everything." He paused, thinking. "She talked about you in the Discussion."

Bobby furrowed his brow. "Really?" Knowing it was a terrible idea, he went ahead and asked. "What did she say about me?"

Andy shrugged noncommitaly, and Bobby felt a bit of relief, knowing it had been a lousy thing to ask. It was better that-

"Said you're really nice." Bobby smiled. "And funny. And...what's a scrooluce?"

"A scrooluce? I don't know."

"Well, she said you've got one, anyway."

Bobby started to laugh. "Yes, I do."

"And she loves you," he said, going back to his car.

Don't overreact, Bobby, you know perfectly well what she meant. "Oh, that's a nice thing to say."

"Do you love her?" he asked bluntly.

Wow, if this kid goes with the Eames family tradition, he'll be a great interrogator. "Oh, definitely. She's my best

bud."

"Then why was she crying about it?"

Every sensible fiber in his body was screaming at him not to ask. "Aunt Alex was crying?"

"Um-huh. She said she loves Bobby and that was bad." He was paying too much attention to his car to notice

Bobby's face turning bright red. His heart was racing.

"Are you sure she said Bobby?"

"Ummmmm..." He didn't sound so sure. Bobby felt relief and dissapointment warring over which should be in his

heart. They made a truce, and both settled there. "Guess not. I think...I think it was a cowboy," he said with certainty.

"A cowboy?" Now Bobby was genuinely confused. Confused and jealous.

"Yup, 'Cause she said she's in love with a 'pardner' and that made her cry."

Bobby's blood went cold. He sat in silence for a whole minute, trying to make sense of what he'd just learned. "Um,

Andy will you do me a favor, man to man?" He made sure the little boy looked him in the eye and nodded. "I think it would be better if we didn't tell Mommy or Auntie Alex what we talked about, okay? It can be our little secret."

"Why?"

"Well, I think it might hurt Aunt Alex's feelings if she thought I knew about this stuff."

"Did I do something bad?"

"No. Not at all, I promise. I made a mistake."

"Alex says you don't make mistakes."

Bobby's heart swelled at that. "Well, that's really sweet of her to say, but I do. I make big mistakes."

"I won't tell."

"Thanks. It was fun to talk to you, but it looks like Mommy and Auntie Alex are here." Alex smiled at her two little

boys. Stop thinking like that.

"Bye, Bobby," Andy surprised Bobby by hugging him. It felt so good.

"Bye."

"Have a good weekend, Goren."

"You, too, Eames," he managed to say without choking on the words. Fortunately, no more conversation was called

for, because he didn't think he could string together a coherent sentence to her at the moment.

"You okay, Goren?"

"Just tired." He could tell Eames didn't believe him, but she didn't call him on it.

"So, what did you and Bobby talk about?" His mommy asked later.

"Cars and the cowboy."

"What cowboy?"

"The one Auntie Alex is in love with."

This gave his mommy pause. Tell me he didn't. She stayed calm. "Auntie Alex is in love with a cowboy, huh?"

"You know, the pardner." Oh, no.

"Honey," she spoke slowly. "Exactly what did you tell Bobby about the...cowboy?"

"Oops. I just bembered. Bobby said it was a secret. He didn't want me to say we talked about the cowboy and how

he made her cry." If Bobby had told him to keep it a secret, it meant he knew everything.

"Alex," she said into the hallway. "I think Andy might have done something...Maybe you should come here and, um, sit down."

"He said what?! No, Andy, sweetie, I'm not mad at you. I'm mad at myself. I can't believe I did this to him."

Alex's choice of words startled her sister. "Well, I don't know exactly, but whatever it is, Bobby knows it's about him,

and he knows it's something you wouldn't want him to know. I think we can pretty much..."

"Yeah, I can guess," she said miserably. "I guess I should just wait till Tuesday and see what happens." She didn't

sound convinced.

"Alex, it's a three day weekend and it's only Friday evening. You'll go bonkers and worry yourself sick if you don't settle this now."

She was near tears, so uncommon for Alex Eames. "I could have ruined everything. One stupid converstion drunk on stupid wine, and I could have ruined everything!"

"You're exaggerating," her sister insisted.

"No, I'm not, I swear, you don't understand. I'm not trying to be all important or anything, but it's no ego trip that I have...I have the power to literally ruin him. I know that makes no sense. Understand, all his life he's had nothing but rejection. His mother was incapable of loving him the way she should have, his father was a useless drunk who walked out on them without a second look back, and he only has a few good friends. And me. All his other partners went running the other way from him. You didn't see the pain in him, the pain I caused, when those bastards put me on the stand and made me confess to once ripping him apart and trying to desert him. I can't hurt him like that. Nobody else can leave him. When I was out with Andy, he fell apart. I know it sounds vain, but he needs me. They'll break us apart for this. And I'll lose my dearest friend."

"Talk. To. Him."

"Goren, hey," she said casually into the phone. "I really hate to ask this, but could you do a godawful favor for me?"

He tried to keep his voice even. "'Course."

"Andy's out with a friend for the rest of the day, and well, I'm calling from the guest room, and quite frankly, my sister's driving me bonkers. She and her husband are having a squabble right now, and I just hate being in the middle of it." She lied easily. "Do you think maybe you could call with some kind of emergency and get me outta here?"

"Um," he articulated. Just a few days ago, and every day before that, he wouldn't have hesitated at all. But now. She loved him, was in love with him from the sound of what Andy said. (She was crying about it). Could he trust himself to be near her with this knowledge? There was always that want there to just reach out and kiss her, just a little, maybe on the cheek, let her know that he adored her, anything to be closer to her. The only thing that held hom back was the knowledge that it could hurt her, make her reject him. But if he knew she wouldn't...That changes everything. "That bad, huh? 'Course I will. Five minutes good?"

"That works. Thanks, bye. Five minutes to doomsday," she remarked to her sister after hanging up.

"You'll be fine, Alex." She touched her sister's arm and smiled. Truth be told, she could tell, obvious as an iron skillet to the nose, that Alex's partner truly loved her. It was in every movement, every touch, every look, and everything that he ever said to her. He'd come to visit in the hospital when Andy was born. He'd kissed her head, brought her flowers and beamed at her the whole time. And Alex had positively reveled in the affec-the attention, she corrected. Funny how those two little curves of the letters could change the meaning so profoundly. ff tt. But Alex had gotten both. Later, he'd held her while she cried about giving him away.

And they kept finishing each other's sentences, driving her and her husband nuts because the could never tell what the pair were talking about. If they didn't fix this mess soon, she was going to lock them in a room until they sorted it all out. She considered that for a moment. Nah, they get one more chance to fix this on their own.

Constructive criicism, here. Please?????